The Forging of Fantom

by Reginald Hill

  ‘’Tis I who should be grateful, sir,’ I replied with tipsy eloquence, ‘to the waters for giving me the opportunity and the winds for giving me the excuse to make your acquaintance. But I need thank neither wind nor water for giving me a reason. The name and the fame of the family Molini are cause enough for all men of honour to pursue their friendship.’

  ‘You are too kind, Signore …?’ said the woman. ‘Perhaps you will honour us by calling at our house during the present festivities?’

  I smiled conspiratorially at the girl, who looked modestly away, and as I turned to assure the lady of the shining bubbs that I would go along with them this very moment, the gondola rocked violently as another collided with it and I tumbled over the gunwale into the canal.

  It was Quevedo’s fault. Paddling with his hands he had brought our own vessel right across the path of the Molini boat. Now howling with laughter, he dragged me aboard while the Molini’s gondolier disdainfully sent their boat skimming out of our reach.

  ‘Well, Carlo,’ said Quevedo, passing me the ingistera of wine he had been clutching to his bosom. ‘You have a fine way with important people! Who are these Molinis whose acquaintance you so desire?’

  ‘Never heard of them,’ I gasped through a long draught of wine. ‘Their importance to me is their daughter. Did you get a good look at her, Francisco?’

  ‘She looked fair enough,’ he said carelessly. ‘But I much misdoubt that even unimportant families are going to let a horny young Croat near their virgins.’

  ‘Why so?’ I demanded angrily. ‘They greeted me courteously and bade me to their house. You heard them yourself!’

  Quevedo roared with laughter, then leaned over the side of the gondola and rapped the woodwork.

  ‘’Twas this they greeted courteously,’ he mocked. ‘The Priuli emblem. For aught they know you are a favourite grandson of the Doge!’

  I scowled in reply and drank deep again while he leapt upright, seized the oar and began propelling us over the water with much more skill than I had shown, the whiles singing an amorous barcarole most tunefully. My sulks were only intensified by the recognition that he spoke true. The one great perk of being Doge was that yours became the most desirable family to marry into. I recall hearing later that when Antonio’s son Giralamo married one of the Dolfin girls, she brought with her a dowry of 200 000 ducats which must have given a bit of welcome weight to the light Priuli coffers. But I had other things on my mind by the time that marriage came to pass.

  Meanwhile I was young, carefree and full of wine, and even if these alone were not enough to dissipate my spleen, the company of Francisco Quevedo must have done so. I knew little enough of him, except that he was some kind of scribbler, though whether of sermons or sonnets I could not say. What I did know was that he had a sharper eye for the follies of mankind, a sharper tongue to ridicule them, and a sharper nose to sniff out where a man might best enjoy them, than any other I knew.

  Now I grew merry again in his company, becoming serious once more only when we reached our destination and I solemnly informed Quevedo that, in view of my recent encounter with my soul’s true love, Felicia Molini, I had resolved to keep my body pure till I could enjoy hers, under God’s ordinance.

  ‘Under God?’ he said. ‘That’s a heavy fellow to be taking to bed with you, Carlo! No, don’t be angry again. You are right and I admire you for it. Wait here.’

  He leapt ashore and a few minutes later returned with a couple of laughing girls. Their easy availability had two causes, one being that in Venice whores were more plentiful than in any other city I know – more than 20000 I was told (the number being known because the State taxes them, and maintains a dozen galleys on the tax!). The second reason was that these two girls were Cretans, olive-skinned, dark-haired, with huge hot eyes. But be they ne’er so desirable, there was a prejudice against them among the Venetian men who believed they had teeth so poisonous that if a man were bitten deep by one of them, he was not like to recover!

  It was not a risk I was about to run.

  ‘Take you the oar, good Carlo!’ commanded the Spaniard. ‘I would to God I had your strength of purpose, but my clay is compounded of baser earths. Pray for my soul as you direct us into the lagoon!’

  So saying he pulled the canopy down so that he and the giggling girls disappeared from my sight. I drove the oar through the water and thought of that sweet face I had seen in the Molini’s gondola. She had spoken no word, but almost I could hear her soft voice commingling with the music and the laughter which seemed to be all about me on the water.

  ‘Signore,’ said the soft voice. ‘Signore!’

  A hand grasped my foot. I looked down. Regarding me anxiously was one of the Cretans.

  ‘Your friend wishes you to at least enjoy the wine,’ she said, holding up the ingistera. How considerate a friend was this, I thought. In the midst of his own pleasures, he turns his thoughts to my comfort.

  As I took the flask from the girl, our hands met and she smiled shyly. I put the vessel to my lips, then paused on a sudden wondering if she had drank from it and whether the poison from those teeth might communicate itself through the wine. But another look at that round, sun-kissed face with those rich, deep eyes reassured me. I drank deep. The gondola lurched as my grip on the oar was released and I sat down with a bump to avoid another plunge over the side.

  ‘Signore, are you ill?’ the Cretan asked me urgently, kneeling by my side.

  I patted her hand reassuringly and replied, ‘No, I am well.’

  She looked so genuinely relieved that I could not resist giving her a chaste kiss. She kissed me back. We kissed each other with all our might and my tongue sought those little white teeth which held no poison, sure, but sweetest balm. The gondola drifted at the wind’s will and the tide’s will, and I drifted with it, floating in a trance without drive or direction till my little navigator’s hand reached out and found my oar.

  On a sudden, Quevedo poked his head through the canopy.

  ‘For God’s sake, Carlo,’ he cried. ‘Get under here! This may be Venice, yet still do one or two good Christian souls survive who care not for sights such as that even on their festive days!’

  I may have thought, as my little Cretan pulled me under the canopy, how frail a thing was virtuous resolution, but I doubt it.

  I have thought it oft since.

  6

  THE next day I was something the worse for wear, but as soon as I was able, I dressed in my best clothes (culled from Benetto’s wardrobe when he was a stripling of my age – Venetian frugality permits nothing to be thrown away) and prepared to make a call on the family Molini. But before I could leave the palazzo I was summoned to Benetto’s presence.

  With Antonio’s departure to the Ducal Palace, Benetto had clearly decided to upgrade his own position here, and he looked the very model of patrician gravity when I entered his room. My pretence of religious adoration for the man had been replaced by a genuine fondness and I think he had come to feel something for me of what a rich benevolent uncle might feel towards a poor dependent nephew. But my standing was still unfirm. Probably the most outrageous thing I could do was to use my ‘status’ in the Priuli household to go courting Felicia Molini, so my heart sank when I heard Benetto’s opening words.

  ‘Carlo,’ he said sternly. ‘I have heard ill reports of you last night.’

  Could the Molinis have checked up on me already and made a complaint? Suspicious bastards! But his next words took me by surprise.

  ‘On festival days it is meet that a young man should shed his cares, but not his standards,’ he continued. ‘With my uncle’s coronation, our family is the first in Venice, and it is not fitting that anyone connected – no matter how lowly the connection – with the Priulis should consort openly with one who may yet prove an enemy of the State.’

  ‘You don’t mean Señor Quevedo?’ I asked in amazement.

  ‘Enough said,’ he answered grimly. ‘Never forget, Carlo, you are in my cus
tody as well as my care. The State has claims on you still. Now dismiss.’

  I was so taken aback that I almost forgot to kiss his hand and bless his beneficence before I left the room. For the moment the sharp scent of danger overpowered the sweet perfumes of love and, postponing my pursuit of Felicia, I went to consult Godfrey at his lodging. This was in a quiet calle running off the Merceria, which is their principal street of trade, but more like a caliph’s palace than a street, for here are drapers who pour their bales of silvered damask, and Tyrian chamlet, and cloth of gold from upper windows to pavilion the passer-by in splendour, and perfumeries that turn the air to Samian wine, and cages of nightingales everywhere, who sing the sweeter for they sing of loss. Yet that morning I paid no heed to sight or sound or smell, but made my way with all speed to Godfrey’s lodging.

  As I approached the house, a man came out and I recognized him as Sir Henry Wotton, the English Ambassador in Venice. I had not met him formally so we passed without words, though I felt he observed me. I was not surprised to see a person of such eminence strolling unaccompanied through the streets, for such informality was commonplace in day-to-day affairs; besides there were no horses or carriages in the city and even litters were rarely used by reason of narrowness of the ways. But I was slightly surprised to see how close an acquaintance with Godfrey the ambassador must have.

  He had left the house door ajar, so I entered unannounced, mounting the stairs rapidly and bursting into Godfrey’s apartments without ceremony.

  He was studying some papers at his desk and as I entered he leapt to his feet in alarm, seizing his English dog-lock pistol which lay close to his hand.

  ‘Carlo!’ he said in relief. ‘In God’s name why so sudden?’

  ‘If you will stop pointing that thing at me,’ I answered, ‘I will tell you.’

  I sat down and quickly described my interview with Benetto. When I told him of Quevedo and the Cretans, he roared with laughter, the sound of which did much to lighten my spirit.

  ‘You think there is nothing in all this?’ I asked eagerly.

  ‘Less than you think, perhaps more than you know,’ he answered enigmatically. ‘First, as to Benetto. Well, he is a nice chap, but insignificant. This morning he was flexing his muscles with you, probably because he is afraid to play the patriarch with any real member of the family. Still, he must be watched, for there’s nothing stronger than a weak man’s self-delusion.’

  I wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but was happy to leave the interpretation of the situation in his hands. I picked up his dog-lock from the table and hefted it enviously in my hand. It was a lovely piece of machinery, beautifully balanced, with a rifled screw-barrel, and I had seen Godfrey put a ball through a Turk’s head with it at more than fifty paces.

  ‘You like my gun?’ said Godfrey with a smile. ‘Well, Carlo, when I’m dead you shall have it to go with the old cutlass I gave you.’

  I put the weapon down, alarmed once more.

  ‘Why do you speak of death?’ I asked. ‘We are in no danger, surely?’

  ‘Believing that is the most dangerous thing of all,’ he said.

  ‘But you said that Benetto was not a man to be regarded.’

  ‘He is a Venetian gentleman, and nephew to the Doge,’ said Godfrey. ‘Powerful claims to regard, whoever makes them. This Quevedo, what do you know of him?’

  ‘That he is a kind friend and a witty companion,’ I answered promptly. ‘What more need one man know of another?’

  ‘Perhaps nothing,’ he agreed. ‘For God often chooses to protect fools. But let me tell you more of your friend so that you may better judge Benetto’s purpose. First, he is Spanish.’

  ‘And the King of England is English!’ I mocked.

  ‘Alas, no,’ said Godfrey. ‘I fear that he is Scottish. But that is another sorrow. You know that there is little love between this State and the Spaniards, who were like to have made an invasion from the sea at the time of the Pope’s interdict ten years ago.’

  ‘But what has this to do with me and Francisco Quevedo?’ I demanded. ‘I am no Venetian, and he represents no country. The Marqués Bedmar is the Spanish Ambassador, is he not? And the two states are now at peace, are they not? Why then should I not enjoy a drink with one who is nothing more dangerous than a merry scribbler!’

  ‘Do you know why your merry scribbler left Spain?’ asked Godfrey. ‘He killed a man in a duel, one of a nobler family than his own, so he thought it best to flee. Did he tell you that?’

  ‘No man of honour would boast of such a thing,’ I said indifferently, though in truth I was something surprised. Quevedo had not struck me as a man of violent action.

  ‘One thing more,’ continued Godfrey. ‘You have heard of the Duke of Osuna?’

  I was able to nod honestly this time. Osuna, the Spanish Viceroy of Naples, was the popular bogeyman of the Venetian imagination. His diplomatic opposition to Venetian interests was well known and, in the minds of the ignorant, he was regarded as the prime mover of all disasters in the State, from the rise of the price of bread to the loss of an argosy.

  ‘Quevedo is in Osuna’s employ and has been since he arrived in Italy.’

  Now I was quite taken aback. The young are never curious to know the source of other people’s incomes. You take money as it comes, and reck not whence it comes – or indeed whither it goes! How Quevedo lived, I knew not, any more than it concerned me what Godfrey was living off since he abandoned piracy.

  ‘You mean, the Duke Osuna is his patron?’

  Godfrey laughed without much humour.

  ‘Men like Osuna do not pay merely for the flourishes of an over-written dedication,’ he said. ‘Those they may have for nothing, for the world is full of authors who need more than they earn and want more than they deserve. No, the good Duke sends only two kinds of servant to Venice – intelligencers and assassins.’

  ‘Then Benetto was telling the truth when he warned me off!’ I said, jumping to my feet. ‘But did he not realize I would immediately warn Francisco? The fool!’

  ‘Fool if it were his own idea,’ agreed Godfrey. ‘But suppose he acted on a hint from the Ten …?’

  ‘The Ten!’ I exclaimed in alarm. ‘What have the Ten to do with me any more? And surely if they are keeping an eye on Quevedo, they wouldn’t want to risk arousing his suspicions by bringing me into it?’

  ‘Oh Carlo! Carlo!’ mocked Godfrey. ‘I wager you’ll make an excellent soldier one day, for your talent must be for killing, since it’s certainly not for intriguing. Think you that your Spanish friend does not know that the Ten know what he is? Or that they do not know that he knows?’

  My head spun with all this talk of ‘knowing’, and Godfrey laughed at my confusion, and said, ‘Come, walk with me, for ’tis almost time for my social round which, as you know, always starts at the palazzo Priuli. I am late this morning. My tailor delayed me with some matter of an unpaid bill.’

  I thought how curiously like the English Ambassador his tailor had looked, and how little short of money Godfrey appeared, but I was discreet enough to keep my mouth shut. When I excused myself from going with him, however, he showed no answering discretion but pressed me to tell him what business I proposed that morning. To tell truth, I needed little persuasion for a young man is never reluctant to sing his mistress’s praises.

  He whistled when I mentioned the name Molini, then smiled reflectively when I referred to Lazzaro and Teresa.

  ‘Does Benetto know of this?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course not? Why should he?’

  ‘Well, for a start, because it seems to me that you are going to use your connection with his family to try and gain entry to Molini’s household.’

  ‘And why not?’ I retorted. ‘If I am so closely allied to the Priulis that they may try to limit my choice of friends, surely I may legitimately use the connection to try to further my choice of females!’

  He grinned broadly.

  ‘You will make a soldier, Carlo,’ he
said. ‘For you use the kind of reasoning which only persuades when it is backed up by a pair of cannon! But if you must take the risk of courting the daughter of a clarissimo, then perhaps you have made the least dangerous choice open to you.’

  ‘How so?’ I asked. ‘You know the family.’

  ‘I have met them a few times,’ he said negligently. ‘It’s the younger girl who’s captured your soul, is it? Well, her sister is more striking, but Felicia is fair enough. Rather retiring, as I recall, but often it is the slowest walkers who dance the merriest jig! Nay, look not offended, Carlo! I mean no harm. Listen to what I can tell you of this family. Perhaps it may help your suit.’

  The Molini clan was large and important (so Godfrey told me) but Lazzaro’s branch of the family was very much on the margin, bearing the same relationship to the centre of the tribe as Papa Priuli (now departed on another, doubtless disastrous voyage!) bore to the top Priulis. United in honour, separated in economy – that’s the way these families work!

  As a young man Lazzaro Molini (Godfrey continued) had been so keen to avoid a life of genteel poverty that he broke all previous limits in going outside his class in search of a wealthy bride. He had returned from a trip to the terrafirma accompanied by Teresa whose father, he claimed, was a chirurgeon in Brescia, not one whose name was ever like to be inscribed in the Book of Gold, but a candidate perhaps for an Appendix of Silver. In the event it turned out the fellow was nothing more than a horse-coper who knew at best how to doctor a stallion and whose name, if he could have written it, would have looked presumptuous in a Book of Lead! I felt a naive delight that the Molinis were already connected with someone whose origins were even lower than mine!

  Low her origins may have been, but Teresa’s dowry was huge (worth her bubbs in gold, Godfrey assured me), and Lazzaro had with the help of advice from his father-in-law (for these horse-copers are shrewd fellows at making money work) managed to live comfortably for nigh on twenty years, and produced two daughters, Margharita (the elder) and my own Felicia.