The Venice Conspiracy

by Jon Trace

Tina turns down the sound, carries a leaflet over and drops it on the desk. ‘I got it from reception. The concierge has a friend at the Ateneo di San Basso who can fix good tickets. It’s the San Marco Chamber Orchestra, and they’re supposed to be the best.’

  He glances at the leaflet. It tells how Vivaldi had worked in Venice as a violin teacher, then went on to write more than sixty works and became director of the Sant’Angelo theatre. Tom puts it down. ‘I only know The Four Seasons, and for much of my life I even thought that was a hotel chain.’

  Tina laughs. ‘Time to educate you, then. What are you scribbling?’

  ‘Just some thoughts. Something a cop said at the morgue has been going round in my head.’

  She slips behind him and rubs his shoulders. ‘Maybe Paris or London would have been better options after all.’

  ‘You’re telling me.’

  ‘So exactly what is going round in that lovely head of yours?’

  He writes down four letters and underlines them. ‘C-U-L-T - I think what we might be looking at is the workings of a cult. Part Satanic, part mired in old pre-Christian worship and mythology.’

  ‘A new cult, or an old cult?’

  He looks up at her. ‘Good question. That’s what the Carabinieri are going to have to work out.’ He puts an arm around her waist and eases her on to his lap. ‘Listen, I’m sorry I’m not very pleasant to be with today. This thing is eating at me.’

  She kisses him. ‘I know. I understand. It’s good that you’re the kind of guy who tries to help out.’ She stands up, grabs his hand and pulls him to his feet. ‘Get off your sad ass for a minute and come see something.’

  She drags him across the room, past the TV, the dresser and newly made-up bed that she can’t wait to unmake again. ‘Shut your eyes.’

  He feels foolish.

  ‘Hands over them. No peeping.’

  Tina’s too small to check if he’s cheating. She stands on tiptoe to try, and then takes his hand again and walks him a few more steps to his left. ‘Okay. Now you can look.’

  He does.

  He’s standing in front of her open wardrobe, staring at racks of blouses, skirts, dresses, pants and shoes. So many shoes!

  ‘To the left, stupid.’ She uses both hands to turn his broad shoulders.

  Now he gets it.

  More clothes. Men’s clothes. New clothes for him. Just for him.

  ‘I didn’t buy you any altar robes,’ she says, instantly feeling clumsy about the comment. ‘I guess even if your bag turns up, you probably won’t be needing them again.’

  Her generosity leaves him stuck for words. He runs his hand across the hangers: two pairs of lightweight trousers, three crisp cotton shirts, two V-neck lamb’s wool jumpers and a black wool jacket, lined in silver and styled to wear formal or casual.

  He turns round to say thanks - and maybe even to reveal that no one’s bought clothes for him since his mother died. But Tina’s not there.

  She’s over by the bed. Stretching a pair of Calvins between her thumbs. ‘Come here. I need to see if your sad but perfectly formed ass fits in these.’

  CAPITOLO XXIV

  666 BC

  Atmanta

  It is the moment Teucer has been dreading.

  The unveiling. The removal of his bandages.

  Time to find out if he’s still blind.

  Tetia and his parents have gathered in the healer’s hut, their faces sagging with the weight of expectation.

  The magistrate has sent his emissary Larth, who sits on a small wooden stool near the bed where Teucer lies. ‘Pesna commands me to inform you that the temple is complete. He moved slaves from his mines and they have worked ceaselessly through the changes of sun and moon to finish it on time. The hallowed halls shine like gold, and only await your offerings and blessings.’

  Teucer doubts Pesna redeployed many workers and suspects the workmanship to be shoddy. ‘The deities will be pleased,’ he says sarcastically.

  Larth grabs his arm. ‘Do not humour me, Netsvis. If you could but see the man I am, then you would not be so foolish as to chide me like a child.’

  Venthi steps forward to intervene, but Teucer, anticipating the move, tells him, ‘Father, please, do nothing. I am in no danger.’ He puts a hand on Larth’s vice-like grip: ‘Stranger, I need no eyes to see you. I know you are an enforcer, a torturer, filled in equal measure with ambition and resentment. If you do not wish the gods to curse you, then you will let go of me.’

  Larth loosens his grip. Teucer can feel where the fingers have bruised his skin as Larthuza moves closer. ‘Lie back, please.’ The healer’s hands guide him down on to the bed. ‘Cover the window, Tetia. Bright light must not fall upon his pupils.’

  Tetia closes the rough shutters inside the room, struggling to fasten the latch because the wood has warped and no longer lies flush to the wall.

  Larthuza lights a candle and places it to one side. ‘Teucer, I do not want you to open your eyes. Not until I tell you to.’

  Tetia squeezes through to stand beside him. She takes her husband’s hand as Larthuza starts to unwrap the bandages. They stick to the sweat on his face and leave white crease-lines on his pink skin. The healer dips wool in a wooden water bowl and cleans his eyelids. He dries Teucer’s face and then prays:

  ‘I beseech Turan, the great goddess of love, health and fertility to favour Teucer in this, his time of need. I implore all the great gods known and still unrevealed to show their kindness and love by gifting Teucer the return of his sight.’

  Then he kisses his fingertips and places them lightly on the netsvis’s eyebrows. ‘You may open your eyes now.’

  Teucer doesn’t move. ‘Thank you, Larthuza. Before I put myself to this test, I have things to say, and those gathered here must bear witness to my words. I speak as a netsvis and not as a mere man. In my world of blackness I have seen more than in my many years in the light.’

  Venthi puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘Be careful, my son.’

  ‘Etruria is in danger. It grows richer by the hour but a great loss awaits it. One which the gods are powerless to stop.’

  Venthi stoops and whispers in his ear. ‘Enough, Teucer. These are things you should not say with strangers around you.’

  Teucer lifts a hand to silence his father. ‘I have seen a demon that has set its eyes upon Atmanta. A deity so powerful it sends Aita and his sprites running like scared children.’

  ‘Enough!’ Venthi turns to Larth. ‘My son is still not well. The healer’s herbs have affected his mind.’

  ‘My mind is clear, Father.’ Teucer opens his eyes.

  Everyone stoops and stares. No one speaks.

  Tetia can already tell.

  So too can his mother.

  ‘We all know from our silences that I cannot see. Nor will I ever see again.’

  Larthuza brings the candle close to Teucer’s eyes.

  The netsvis flinches. ‘Please, Larthuza, you will set fire to me with that candle. I may not be able to see it, but I can feel its heat.’

  The healer backs away.

  Teucer beckons to them. ‘Now, Stranger, you with the hurtful grip - I imagine you did not come all this way merely to be a messenger. So help me up, and take me across the fields to Magistrate Pesna so I may speak with him of this curse. We have an urgent matter to settle.’

  CHAPTER 29

  Present Day

  Venice

  Maria Carvalho, the forty-two-year-old wife of the Carabinieri major, has been helped into bed by her sister Felicia. She’s already asleep by the time Vito eventually makes it home.

  Maria has multiple sclerosis. It mugged her on a Wednesday morning eleven years ago, when her physician gave her the life-changing explanation for her tremors, balance problems and blurred vision.

  Maria’s illness is the reason her husband quit his job in Milan.

  As a high-flying homicide detective he’d just been offered promotion but opted instead for a sideways move to the backwaters of Venice.
He never told Maria what he’d turned down. He said there were cutbacks, reshuffles in the unit, and he was out of favour. A move would be good for him. A clean start.

  Work and Maria are the two most important things in Vito’s life, but not in that order. And not for one second has he regretted his decision to leave Milan.

  But tonight, he’s feeling rusty. Slow.

  A murdered fifteen-year-old.

  A killer on the loose.

  These things were bad enough.

  But a dead colleague. One whom he’d mentored, thought of like a son. Well, this is too much to cope with.

  He flaps down a cupboard door in a cheap teak wall unit and grabs a bottle of brandy and a tumbler. These are his two friends for the evening. They know him of old.

  He takes a long slug of a ’76 Vecchio. Lets it set fire to his mouth. Feels it roll like lava into the pit of his stomach.

  The apartment is small. The living room almost silent. Sadness seems to amplify every sound. A clock on the fireplace clunks. Maria’s tiny movements upstairs in bed make the floor-boards creak and groan. Even his own swallows of brandy sound like drains emptying.

  Vito puts the glass down and stares at the ceiling. He tries not to recall the faces of Antonio’s parents as he broke the news. Tries not to remember how Valentina struggled to be brave in front of him.

  Gradually the brandy sinks in and he starts to unwind. There’s a chance he would have fallen into a comfortable sleep at the table, had his cellphone not rung.

  The major grabs it quickly so it doesn’t wake Maria. ‘Pronto.’

  The caller is Nuncio di Alberto. A young officer working the night shift in the murder incident room. Vito listens carefully. The news instantly sobers him up.

  Things are going from bad to worse.

  ‘You’re sure of it? There’s no mistake?’

  Nuncio says he’s as sure as he can be. ‘I tried Lieutenant Morassi, sir, but she’s not picking up on her cellphone.’

  ‘Don’t bother her again. She can pick things up in the morning.’ He glances at the clock. Midnight. His day should be finished, not just beginning.

  CAPITOLO XXV

  666 BC

  The House of Pesna, Atmanta

  The giant map that Pesna studies on the floor of his private office is made of linen, not papyrus. The magistrate, like many Etruscans, likes to make his mark in a manner noticeably different to that of the Greeks. Their texts are on scrolls and are stored rolled, while Pesna and other nobles across Etruria prefer to use linen and fold the finished works. The Etruscan alphabet, written back to front, is already different from its Greek counterpart, and Pesna has no doubts that by the end of his life there will not be a Greek alive who will be able to read it.

  Caele is on one side of him, relaxed and fresh from his rest and much-needed sex with the foreign whores who bathed him. Kavie, on the other side, is tense, alert and focused.

  The ship owner traces a finger across a vast new area east of Atmanta, heading across the northernmost end of the Adriatic. ‘You now own this marshland, from here to here. As requested, we have scouted it and there were no settlements of any note.’

  Kavie looks up from the map. ‘So there were some people there?’

  ‘Not any more.’ Caele’s face says it all. ‘The land is Pesna’s.’

  ‘And here?’ Pesna circles his finger over a rash of islands close to his newly acquired land.

  ‘I doubt the area is worth having. It is marshland, and so flooded that it’s beyond building on.’

  Pesna looks sceptical. As though he’s only being told half the story.

  Caele throws back his head. ‘I confess I did not go close, for fear that my ship would run aground. But I hear tell that it is uninhabited bar a few insane islanders, who eat only fish and probably their own children.’

  Kavie picks up a goblet of wine. ‘This trivial earth and scrapings of people can be taken later without sweat. Let’s celebrate. Pesna, you have the land for your new city. This is an historic moment.’

  All three clink goblets and down their wine.

  The magistrate walks towards a long table where more jugs are waiting. ‘Fold the map, Kavie. Let us sit by the window and talk of the coming gathering of noblemen.’

  They refresh their goblets and regroup in a pit of cushions looking out on to the gardens. Pesna folds his robe around his legs as he crosses them and makes himself comfortable. ‘Our aim is simple: to ensure that the city leaders come away accepting me, not as their equal but as their future leader, the man who will make it possible for them to realise ambitions beyond their wildest dreams—’

  Caele touches his arm. ‘And riches beyond their greediest imaginings.’

  Pesna nods. ‘Quite so. If you discount force and fear - and discount them we must, for we have no mighty army at our disposal - then there are only two ways to control powerful men: through their cocks and their purses. After the ceremony at the temple, and before we feast and whore them, we will take our esteemed guests to the mines and lavish gifts upon them. My silversmiths are busy as we speak. Then, we will enlist their support - and muscle - in the new cities we build east of the Po River.’

  A knock on the door silences them.

  Larth stands in the doorway. ‘I have the netsvis, as you requested. He is waiting outside.’

  Pesna climbs from the quicksand of cushions. ‘Bring him in.’

  ‘He is still blind, Magistrate.’

  The wine has softened him. ‘Then I have my novelty.’ He glances over to Kavie. ‘I hope he proves to be as valuable as you predicted.’

  Larth pushes Teucer into the room.

  The netsvis is panting, either through fright or exertion.

  Caele mutters, ‘He looks like a lost dog.’

  Kavie, smirking, adds: ‘Let us hope he still has some tricks for his master.’

  Teucer puts the tips of his fingers to his temples. ‘There are four people in this room. Two are strangers to me - they sit in the south near an open window and whisper. The man who brought me here is still behind me, close to the door, uncertain of his position in this assembly.’ He takes one step to his left and one forward, extends his hand and bows. ‘Magistrate Pesna, I greet you. I am without my sight, but with more insight than I have ever had.’

  Pesna takes Teucer’s hand in both of his. ‘I am sorry to learn that your blindness remains. We have invited many noblemen to attend the consecration of the temple and had hoped to have you officiate.’

  ‘I am still able to fulfil my duties.’

  Pesna smiles to his friends, a grin of mockery. ‘A spirited response, my young friend. Pray tell me - despite your affliction, do you still believe the gods wish you to be our augur?’

  Teucer stays calm. ‘My belief is more resolute now than it ever was.’

  Pesna turns to the others. ‘It is my wish you afford me time alone with my priest.’

  They exchange looks and then silently leave the room.

  Pesna walks around Teucer and assesses him.

  ‘Your wife is a talented sculptress. Did she tell you what she made for me?’

  ‘She said you had her work with your silversmith to make gifts - some articles for each room of the temple - and you will have me bless these along with other offerings.’

  ‘Aah.’ Pesna is amused that the young sculptress is as cunning as she is talented. ‘Your wife has informed you well. I will indeed be grateful if you will bless these gifts - along with others that I have in the room adjacent to this.’

  ‘May I touch my wife’s work? I should like to acquaint myself with it.’

  Pesna is intrigued by the question. ‘You are testing me, Netsvis. I know not how, but I feel there is something on your mind that does not accord easily with my intentions. ’

  ‘May I?’

  Pesna is about to refuse when he is struck by an idea. One with an element of fun.

  ‘Walk with me,’ commands the magistrate. ‘I’ll ensure your path is clear.�
�

  Teucer allows himself to be guided through two doorways. Then Pesna stops and announces: ‘This is the room of gifts. There are more than twenty worldly goods that I have personally commissioned and will place before the deities.’ He moves him to the middle of the room. ‘You are in the very centre now. Let’s see if the gods still favour you.’ He takes Teucer by both elbows and gently waltzes him in an increasingly dizzying spin. ‘If you can find your wife’s work, then I will keep you as my netsvis and you will consecrate the temple. If you cannot - then I will have Larth test your worth by hanging you from his hooks.’

  Pesna lets go.

  Teucer rocks and almost loses his balance.

  ‘Oh, I almost forgot to mention,’ teases the magistrate, ‘there’s one rule to this game: you may touch only six objects. So, make good choices, young priest.’

  Teucer steadies himself. Quells the distracting thunder and vibrations in his heart. Steadies his breathing.

  Hearing Pesna’s elegant leather sandals shuffle and creak to the west of him, he guesses the magistrate will have positioned himself close to the silver tiles. Not next to them. Probably opposite, so he can get the best view of the search.

  Teucer’s heightened senses tell him there is no window in the room - no doubt a precautionary measure to protect the goods within from any thieves. The only fresh air he can feel - a wisp of a breeze around his open sandals - comes from the door they entered through.

  He thinks for a while longer. Pesna spun him round and then stepped away. He remembers the slap of leather on tile. No further than three paces. Four at the very most.

  Teucer now has his bearings.

  He tries to recall Tetia’s account of her visit. She mentioned a wall filled with vases and opposite it a long oak table laden with the most precious art she had ever seen.

  The netsvis stretches out his right hand and carefully steps to his side.

  Pesna stifles a laugh.

  Teucer’s foot brushes the base of a large bucchero vase. His heart jumps.

  He’s picked the wrong side.