by Laura Rahme
“Who goes there?” cried Lorenzo. His hand had already dug into his mantle, as had mine. I gripped to my rondel in the dark. There was a quiet understanding between us as we positioned ourselves to parry against the stranger.
Silence. The figure remained perfectly still. It was fully cloaked in a heavy mantle that seemed to be fashioned entirely of long leather strips. Beneath this coarse cape, he wore high leather boots fitted with metal strappings.
He stepped into the light. A glacial chill swept through me. I discerned the cruel outline of his lips and the chiseled lines of his sunken face. That face! I had seen that face! Two deep scars ran up each cheek and disappeared behind a black leather bauta.
The masked figure opened up his mantle. I felt a sharp pang in my chest. I counted five weapons affixed to his belt. Lorenzo had his sword and I had but one dagger. In a sweeping motion, the mercenary had raised his sword. He held it forth with his two hands, pointing it at Lorenzo.
We leapt at him, each of us making pitiful attempts to block him. At every attack, we met the force of his blade and were propelled off guard. Upon my last advance, he struck at my face with his bare hand. I felt the prod of a boot behind my knee and before I knew it, he had sent me flat upon my back. Blood gushed through my nose instantly. I rose, undeterred, as Lorenzo prepared another strike from the side. The patrician knew how to handle his weapon but his attacker was fast and had already spun about to meet him. I had never seen such rapid footwork. Our attacker’s steadiness unsettled me and his confidence was alarming. Lorenzo struggled.
“Lorenzo, to your left!”
Lorenzo spun. The stranger’s blade whipped through the air, narrowly sparing Lorenzo. I sprung upon the leather-clad man, but in a single stride, he had blocked me. He now held me in an elbow grip and twisted my arm behind my back. Lorenzo struck with his sword, only to be met with a forceful blade.
As for me, I was released, spared from a dislocated joint. I gripped to my arm in pain.
Ignoring me, the stranger turned his attention to Lorenzo. In one vicious arm lock, Lorenzo was held back and pinned to the ground. He gritted his teeth and I knew he would not endure for long. I groped around for my fallen dagger. Having regained it, I rose to my feet and came stumbling behind Lorenzo’s attacker. He faced me with a sneer, before disarming me with one fierce grip. Before I knew what was happening, he had also sent a savage kick into my stomach. I buckled forth, barely breathing.
Through my blurred vision, I saw that the mercenary had applied a masterful block to Lorenzo’s neck. The patrician was tossed off his feet. Coming to, he swept his long locks off his face and stared at the man in black, his lips quivering.
“Do you know who I am, Signore?” he pronounced, as he got up.
In all response, the attacker pressed a gloved hand upon Lorenzo’s face. He dug his fingers into the young man’s eyes, while pointing a blade at his pulsating neck.
I gaped at the whimpering Lorenzo. I was certain that he would be dead in an instant but nothing happened. The patrician remained in a lock, trembling like a leaf, as his opponent merely breathed heavily in his face, threatening to gouge his eyes out. The blade was pushed further against Lorenzo’s neck.
“Lorenzo!”
To my horror, a trickle of blood surfaced on the patrician’s collar.
My vision blackened. The large wings of a red bird were spread before me, clapping against the air. A velvet-cloaked figure thrust itself before Lorenzo’s attacker, brandishing his Aragonese rapier. Lorenzo was no sooner released, that he collapsed unconscious onto the floor. I watched, partly relieved, as the black-clad assassin stood back, his footwork nimble, ready to par Esteban’s attack.
The bravo seemed to be calculating. He carefully raised a dagger from his boot. Even with his two weapons, he seemed hesitant. He eyed his opponent, shifting from guard to guard. His voice was indignant when he spoke.
“Fior di Battaglia! Ma perché?”
There was no answer. Only a defiant silence. I edged closer and could better discern under the moonlight, the jaws and lips of this stranger who had raised Esteban’s ire. Even with his bauta, what I glimpsed was enough to stir a recollection. It was as though, for an instant, I had recognized the man, but I was too frightened to pay heed to my own thoughts.
The assassin stared a moment longer at the Catalan bravo and then Esteban leapt at him, fierce and vengeful, unveiling a sword play of equal caliber. In a frenzied attack, the Aragonese blade countered and was itself countered. The man in the leather mantle fought with a deathly iciness. While his strikes were brutal, all appeared child’s play to him. He seemed invincible. Even as the two scarmitors engaged in joint locks and binds, grappling at each other’s limbs and evading each other’s grips, the stranger’s lips were lifted into a mocking sneer. It was as though he could read each and every one of Esteban’s ensuing moves.
At last, Esteban removed his mantle and wielded it as a shield. With the aid of this cape, he managed to cleverly veil and disarm his opponent. But this one was only just beginning. He drew out two daggers, then raising them, he stepped forth in deep strides. We stared at him, unsure of what he would do. Esteban watched, ready to strike, but the stranger did not budge. His two blades glistened in the dark.
Then his accented voice broke the silence, sending shivers through me.
“I am the noble weapon named the dagger,” he recited. “One who plays at very close range.” In swift footwork, he closed tight toward Esteban, crossing his two blades before him. “And he who understands my malice and my art, will also gain knowledge of many other weapons.” He nodded at Esteban. “Fior di Battaglia,” he said, his lips curling into a smile.
In one swift kick, the stranger regained his fallen sword. He seized it in mid-air and re-sheathed it, still holding his daggers in one hand.
“The name is Malek, Signori. Remember that,” he said.
Before Esteban could respond, the assassin turned. As suddenly as he had appeared, he retreated into the darkness, the leather of his mantle whipping the air in his wake.
“Perché?” roared Esteban.
But the sound of Malek’s boots was lost, dispelled by the breeze’s ruffling of trees.
Esteban stood in silence. I sensed that he was as troubled as I was. He had asked, ‘but why’, as though he was offended and deeply frightened by our assailant.
“What if he returns?” I asked, nearing his side.
“He will not. As odd as it may seem, he was not hired to murder,” he said, still eyeing the shadow, long after it had been swallowed by the rising mist.
“I am glad of that. I may have just come face to face with the most dangerous swordsman that ever walked the islands of Venezia. I feared for my life and for the life of my young friend.” I glanced at Esteban without bothering to veil my gratitude. “If you, Signore, had arrived a moment later, who knows what may have happened.”
Esteban considered my words. He nodded, before sheathing his sword and dagger.
“You did well to take note of his swordsmanship, Signor da Parma. That very thought crossed my mind–that he cuts and thrusts with seeming intent to kill. His methods are swift. His approach is deadly. His feints are deceit incarnate. But rest assured. His intention was not to kill. At least…not this time.” He cast a worried glance in Lorenzo’s direction. “Frighten you perhaps…” he added. “Let us have a look at your friend.”
I leaned over Lorenzo and cut a strip of my camicia to bind the wound on his neck. The gash was not deep. Esteban was right. Lorenzo would come out unscathed but with great fright. The patrician had not yet recovered his spirits. The emotions had taken their toll on the young man.
“You said he was not hired to kill us. What if he had wanted to? Would you possess the skills to stop him?”
“No,” cut Esteban. “I am of the Dardi School. The man you saw has been trained by a master, one who has taught Knights and nobles alike. I know of only one school with that footwork and the manner he posit
ioned himself from guard to guard. And if I am right, then it astounds me that the late Fiore Dei Liberi would have consented to teach his Art of Arms to a mercenary. Let us place more pressure on his arm,” he added, speaking of Lorenzo. “Here. We shall lift him and take him to the edge of the gardens.”
Mirroring Esteban, I placed Lorenzo’s other arm around my shoulder and between us, we dragged Lorenzo’s limp figure through the garden lanes and to the lagoon bank.
“Master Dei Liberi’s armizare is strictly private,” continued Esteban. “His art has remained a secret. Even I have not seen his wrestling manual. But Fior di Battaglia is a rare and fine treatise. I met a Bavarian nobleman, once, who had been taught by Dei Liberi. He told me that the master instructed only deserving nobles, those who would protect the innocents and not misuse their knowledge for dubious ends. The man who attacked you both is a Dalmatian mercenary. He seethes in the dark and probably fights only for ducats. That one such as he would have acquired the Liberi technique astounds me. I do not understand.”
I grew somber at Esteban’s words.
“If as you say, he was trained against the Liberi principles, then what if Dei Liberi had been coerced to instruct him?”
Esteban shot me a quick glance. I could see he had considered the same thing.
“And if this be true,” I pressed on, adjusting Lorenzo’s weight, “the Dalmatian is not himself a free man. He only obeys orders.”
“Whoever orders a man like Dei Liberi must have great power.”
I bit my lips and Esteban at once sensed my restless spirit.
“Ask me the question, Antonio da Parma. Ask it. I can sense how it burns your lips.”
“You are mistaken. I’ve nothing to ask.”
Esteban shook his head. “You want to know who hired him. It is plain to see.”
“That is already answered,” I replied with bitterness. “Only the Consiglio dei Dieci could manage to stage such a masquerade.”
Esteban seemed to rejoice at my admission. “Though I ignore the reason,” I added. “And now, they have successfully frightened Lorenzo. The Signora Contarini will be white with fear when she learns of this.” The cold air of the approaching canal singed at my face. “But not me,” I said.
Esteban managed to turn his head to the side and stared at my determined expression. His bright eyes shone like gems under the moonlight.
“A more pressing question, Esteban,” I continued, not bothering to hide my vexation, “is whether I am likely to encounter you again. You seem to have an intense investment in my whereabouts. Let’s see–I have so far met you in San Polo, later in Santa Croce and now, here, in the Giudecca gardens, of all places. You must not be surprised, then, if I am at all confounded at what seems to be your remarkable talent for doubling up as my shadow.”
Upon hearing this, and much to my dismay, Esteban tilted his head back and emitted a healthy resounding laughter that all but stirred each leaf in the garden. Lorenzo strangely did not wake. We continued down to the edge of the gardens, me looking askance to see whether Esteban would finally reply to my challenge, and him, humming in the cooler air as we approached the canal.
Finally as we waited for a gondolier to oar in our direction, Esteban had the sensibility to offer me a reply.
“I would not want you to come to harm, Antonio da Parma. You are the only man who can help me. Someone with your knowledge of the law, documents… I have already told you what I want. Venezia owes me.”
“I would attempt a visit to the chancellery to retrieve your documents in a legal manner, but my welcome there is dubious,” I said, remembering my last outburst in the Consiglio dei Dieci chamber. “To come to your aid, Esteban, it seems to me that I would need to break into the chancellery and steal from the Venetians. You wish me to betray the confidence of the men who have hired me. And you will not cease from appearing unexpectedly at my side until I have considered your offer. You certainly have strange ways. For all I know, Esteban, you could be hiring those mercenaries yourself!”
“You do not truly believe this,” he said. But his voice was grave and he seemed offended.
I gazed at the gondola’s silhouette in the distance. “You are right. I do not.”
“I feel we are beginning to understand each other, Signor da Parma,” smiled Esteban. I noted the gleam of his teeth in the darkness. I ignore how he managed to smile even at moments like this, when everything I believed seemed to be illusion. The case I had been given grew more obscure every day.
We pushed Lorenzo inside the gondola. I handed a few coins to the oarsman and gave him instructions toward the Contarini household in Castello. To safeguard the young Veneziano’s honor, I explained that our young friend had met with a thug and had fought valiantly before dropping with exhaustion; that he was only to be stirred when he returned home.
“How fares your inquest, Signor da Parma?” asked Esteban once the gondolier was out of earshot. “Have you extracted the information you sought from Signora Contarini?”
“I saw her two days ago, before the funeral. She was emotionally distraught and spoke with great incoherence. I fear that her mind is suffering.”
“To lose one loved one is a tragedy. But to lose two loved ones is a curse,” replied Esteban. “Poor woman.”
I nodded pensively. And then a sudden discomfort seized me just as an idea formed in my mind. I ignored what Catarina would think once her son narrated his attack, but I soon began to understand, that if the Consiglio had at all hired their man of arms merely to frighten Lorenzo, then all along, Esteban and I had been wrong. Lorenzo was not the victim of some political ploy. He was the pawn in a game. For reasons I could not explain, I had a nauseating notion that, somehow, the game was to frighten Catarina.
I began to contemplate the ways of the Consiglio dei Dieci. A sense of resentment more furious than before had risen in me. It dawned on me that Esteban might not be theorizing conspiracies for the joys of rebelling against the Signoria. Then perhaps it was true and Almoro Donato was hiding something. But what? And what designs was I playing into?
Esteban’s Story
Esteban’s story
From an entry in Antonio da Parma’s journal
Late into the night, after deserting the Giudecca Gardens, I sat with Esteban in a quiet tavern in Dorsoduro and together we mulled over his past over a few glasses of Tuscan wine.
“What you saw,” began Esteban, “the skills I possess with the cape and dagger and even my bare arms–I owe all to my master, Gaspar Miguel Rivera. He was a father and teacher to me. He saw that I would be trained in swordsmanship and close-quarter combat. And yes, he too was taught by none other than Lippo Bartolomeo Dardi now at the University of Bologna. Everything he learned of Dardi, he passed onto me— the knowledge of his secret feints, the use of my cape as a shield and clever tricks that only a few will ever possess both in the military and in the treacherous calli of Venezia.
“I owe much of my learning and my courage to Gaspar Rivera. If you had met me as a child, Signor da Parma, you would not have dreamed of seeing me so fierce as I am now. At the age of twelve, I was a skinny orphan, pilfering what food I could from the port of Barcelona while the notaries grew fat on the estates I was not to touch until I turned fifteen.
“My own mother before she died had been a descendant of an old kingdom which the Berbers, her slavers, once called Ghana—a place rich with gold. Unlike me, she was born into slavery. Her ancestors served at the Andalusian courts for over hundreds of years. A few of them found themselves in Barcelona after the fall of Cordoba. She nursed me with legends and songs for the blissful years of my childhood.
“Love is a wonderful thing, Antonio da Parma. And as she loved me, her master, too, loved her. He declared her a free woman upon my birth and I was then, from the start, a free man.
“I have only ever known freedom. But freedom from fear, that was a gift which much later, Gaspar would teach me. He used to say that I had inherited the meekness of my slave
mother and did not know what to do with such freedom; that I was embarrassed of it. That somewhere in the inner workings of my soul, I believed I had done nothing to deserve the rights that so many men take as theirs without doubting. I had remained a humble soul, fearful of my shadow and too bony at the knees to fend for my own self.
“But take this. I was rich. Immensely rich. For my mother’s master had truly been in love with her. And every estate they possessed before the plague took them, was to be mine.
“Alas, by virtue of my youth and ignorance of life, I was soon prey to notaries who gathered round me like greedy vultures. And it was at this time that I met Gaspar Miguel Rivera.
“You must imagine the towering figure of a man who stood before me, at the port that day. Before our encounter, he had been one of the best condottieri there was at the battle of Chiogga. An illustrious Catalan captain, he had first served on the side of the Genoans, sworn fiends of the Veneziani. At the pivotal point in the battle, the Veneziani managed to buy him. Gaspar Rivera was lured and wooed. He was asked to defect from his Genoan loyalties. And since the Veneziani desired his loyalty for life, Gaspar Rivera was offered a life contract.
“That is unheard of, I know. The majority of the contratta d’assento last up to six months on a renewable clause. But they wanted him and they certainly did not wish him to change sides once more. The offer needed to be generous. How could it not?
“Imagine the prize of having such a man serve the Republic. Along with the Venetian tongue, Gaspar spoke Catalan, Castilian and a little Arabic. He knew Sicilian by virtue of his wife who was of the house of Aragon and relations in the Kingdom of Sicily. Later, while learning the Dardi arts in Bologna, in a time when the city was held by the Visconti of Milan, he learned the Milanese tongue.
“Well-traveled, a skilled swordsman with or without armor, Gaspar Rivera was a perfect linguist and an adept scarmitor. He was unequal in his command of ships. He would not have accepted to offer his services to Venezia, save that the contract was much in his favor. Or so he thought.
