The Forging of Fantom

by Reginald Hill

  True, Venice was often a prison cell with walls of water to me, but like a woman who holds you when you would go, she could still give great pleasure. But only in the arms of my Felicia would I find those lasting joys which depend not on place or circumstance. And it was this prospect that finally removed all doubt from my mind.

  Benetto and Quevedo, Venice and her beauties, all must fend for themselves. I was not their keeper, but into Godfrey’s safe-keeping I put myself and waited impatiently for the day when Felicia would come into mine.

  15

  MOST of what happened in the next couple of weeks had all the tedium of events whose function is merely to fill the yawning gap between a man and his heart’s desire. But one or two things in especial I recall.

  Zanetta sent for me one day. I approached her cautiously for, though we had since been on the best of terms, I had never forgotten her attempt to compromise me nor my subsequent insane attack upon her.

  On this occasion, however, she bade me be seated some distance from her and offered me refreshment and talked of casual matters for a while. Finally we got to the point.

  ‘Carlo,’ she said. ‘What will you do with your life?’

  ‘Try to live it holily and humbly in whatever estate it shall please God to call me to,’ I answered promptly.

  ‘And what estate would it please you to be called to?’ she laughed.

  ‘I care not, so long as it becomes a Christian and a gentleman,’ I said. I felt I was doing rather well.

  She regarded me quizzically.

  ‘You have come far, Carlo, since you first came to this house in filthy rags on a filthier errand.’

  The tart reminder of my status stung me and I replied boldly, ‘We have all come far and done much since that day, Signora. Much to be proud of. Much to be ashamed of.’

  For a moment an expression of great sadness touched her face, then she laughed and was a super-subtle Venetian dame again.

  ‘You have coiled yourself around all out hearts, Carlo,’ she mocked. ‘And those of our friends too. Why, I do believe the Englishman, Signore Hatfield, talks of you sometimes as though you were his own child. Natural, of course.’

  ‘Natural or legitimate, ’twould be an honour beyond my conceit,’ I snapped.

  ‘So. So. It’s a pity he plans to leave the city, is it not? You may see him no more. Well, well, that is the way of friendship.’

  She still spoke casually, but now I was aware of her game and understood her attempts at provocation.

  ‘I know nothing of this,’ I said calmly. ‘If he so purposes, he has not told me. But then, I have not seen him for some time.’

  ‘No? Perhaps he has gone already,’ she said carelessly. ‘If you should encounter him again, Carlo, bid him take care that he does not depart without taking leave of his many friends.’

  That concluded the significant part of our conversation. I sought out Godfrey later that day and told him what she had said.

  ‘Take no heed,’ he said. ‘These women! I have neglected her for a week while I have been on the terrafirma preparing our escape route. It’s strange with these wild Venetians, Carlo. Once gentled to an English bridle, they may be ridden with no other!’

  His joke did not ring true and I felt so uneasy that when, as promised, he called at the palazzo the following day, I crept along the balcony next to Zanetta’s room and, though on this occasion I had not the courage to leap across, I found I was able to overhear scraps of their conversation through the open window, particularly the early part which Zanetta conducted in the high indignant screech that demonstrates the common ancestry of the Venetian nobles and the sellers of vegetables in their market. Benetto was out at the Senate, of course, but there were others in the palace and at first Godfrey’s main contribution to the conversation were his pleas for a diminuendo.

  I added my own silent prayers, for what Zanetta was yelling came too near the bone. This is just a sample.

  ‘You filthy English boar! Do you think I do not know what muck those tusks have been rooting in? Am I squeezed dry then? Do you have all that is necessary for your treacherous plots? What’s afoot? Are we all to be murdered in our beds? And will you mount us all before you murder us? Benetto! my Benetto! what have I done to you? Oh foulness! Is this why you flee from the city because there is no one left here for you to betray? And what will you take with you, what jewel to hang around your neck for a while?’

  ‘None but you, my sweet. None but you!’ urged Godfrey, and I heard no more, for not only did he now close all the windows, but I suspect this interjection led to a more profitable line of debate than that offered by Zanetta’s endless rhetorical questioning.

  Nonetheless I sat in my room and awaited the outcome anxiously. Zanetta’s outburst had confirmed what every worldly man knows – that however these great Venetian ladies abandon themselves in passion, their sharp minds they do not abandon. And while a skilful lover may caress her husband’s secret out of his mistress, he cannot stroke her memory smooth also.

  Zanetta, stimulated by Godfrey’s real or imagined neglect, had examined the evidence and produced a hypothesis which, though still vague, came too near the truth for comfort.

  What was to do? I looked at the problem from all sides as I waited. The cold-blooded answer was for Godfrey to keep her happy till the time for our departure arrived. Would he have the stomach for that? I wondered.

  Much would depend on his own true feelings for Zanetta. A solution existed, but only if she was more than a one-finger muff to him.

  Moments later, Godfrey appeared looking exhausted and melancholy.

  ‘I fear she loves me,’ he said glumly, flinging himself onto a couch.

  ‘And do you love her? Or is she right?’ I demanded. ‘Have you found some other in Venice who holds your heart?’

  ‘What? We now play eavesdropper on our friends do we?’ he answered angrily, then subsiding, said, ‘You know I have met no other in this city who pleases me more, Carlo. What of it?’

  ‘Then take her with us!’ I urged. ‘She’ll be a comfort and chaperone to Felicia, and it will be no kindness to leave her here to wait for the Uskoks. Will she come, think you?’

  ‘Aye,’ he said slowly. ‘I think she might. But no! It would be an extra encumbrance. I may not risk failing to get you and your lady out of the city.’

  This selfless sacrifice of his own interests to mine made the tears start to my eyes. I spoke to him long and urgently and in the end I think I persuaded him.

  ‘But,’ he admonished, ‘you must not talk of this with her, Carlo. Promise me. I will tell her as much as she needs to know, no more. Trust anything but a woman’s discretion!’

  So our threesome became a foursome. I felt sorry for Benetto, but it’s the old dilemma. Which is better for a man, to be a knowing or an ignorant cuckold?

  Now the whole city was in a tumult of preparation for the imminent festival. Already the three great red flags had been brought forth and the golden winged lions thereon flew boldly at the top of the lofty poles which stand before St Mark’s. In the Piazza and other squares all over the city, the mountebanks’ platforms were being erected and I shuddered as I imagined I recognized my erstwhile cut-throat companions everywhere. The day before Ascension Day, I definitely did see Jaraj, and he saw me too. But he made no effort to attack or even approach me. No doubt he reckoned there’d be time enough to settle old scores when his fellows were rampaging through the streets on the morrow. Well, he was going to learn the hard way that a man who sleeps on his chances may wake to find himself being buggered by disappointment!

  Godfrey had advised me to act normally, but there was a general feeling of excited anticipation of the great festival which would account for any signs of nervousness I might display. Benetto I had not seen that day, for he had left early. The Senate was in almost constant session, like small boys running about before a party! I was not sorry to have missed him, for he above all made me feel there was something mean and unbecoming
in my actions.

  But it was too late for any change now. I left the palazzo Priuli in mid-afternoon, knowing that if all went well, I would not return there again. Zanetta encountered me at the door. She looked so depressed and unlike her lively self that even though it meant breaking Godfrey’s injunction I could not resist taking her hand and murmuring reassuringly, ‘Take heart! ’Twill soon be night and all will be well when next we meet.’

  ‘Do you think so, Carlo?’ she said, looking at me strangely. ‘And where will that be?’

  ‘You must ask Godfrey,’ I answered, for I knew not at what point he was picking up. Zanetta. ‘By the convent orchard, as I guess. But wherever, ’twill be but a step from freedom!’

  And, kissing her hand, I departed and set about killing the time which lay between me and my tryst in the basilica.

  Matters had fallen out well for there was to be a High Mass held at midnight, which would make it easy for me to enter the church and considerably cut down the time of my waiting therein till the hour of 3 a.m. which we had decided would be the stillest for our purpose.

  In the early evening I was wandering aimlessly about the streets, tossed in my mind between bloody fears and amorous anticipations, when I ran into Quevedo and some companions.

  He made out the encounter was accidental, but I was not totally convinced, and when he told me he and his friends were on their way to a meeting of the Mascherati and urged me to join them, I was for once too slow-witted to think of an excuse. In any case I wished to behave normally, and the last person on earth I wanted to suspect that I knew aught of what was planned for the morrow was Quevedo.

  So with him I went, thinking that being put to sleep by these long-winded bores was one way of hastening on midnight.

  Quevedo was in high spirits, at his most cynically witty.

  ‘You are surely safe for heaven!’ gasped one of his companions who had just almost choked with laughter. ‘On judgement day you will make God laugh too much to condemn you.’

  ‘Think you so?’ said Quevedo. ‘I rather believe the hard thing that day will be to stop God laughing.’

  As we approached the house of Gasparo Valier we all donned masks, Quevedo providing me with one in the likeness of a serpent.

  ‘To match your subtlety, Carlo,’ he said as he gave it to me.

  He himself wore a zany’s mask, with a long nose and huge white tear-drops chalked beneath the eyes.

  The salon was crowded that night. It was more like a carnival party than the usual pretentious intellectual gathering. As usual I penetrated many masks, and when I took my customary withdrawn seat, I found I was close to Giacomo Basadonna and Margharita Molini. He did not seem to have recognized me, however. Nor for that matter was he using the shadowy alcove for his usual lecherous caresses, and Margharita wore a sulky pout beneath her golden lioness mask as though offended at his lack of arousal. I must confess I felt some stirrings myself as I regarded those tawny tits, but I reproached myself angrily and reminded myself that my long period of virtuous abstinence would soon be rewarded in the most holy of embraces, that of a man for the wife he loves and respects.

  The topic for discussion was as half-witted as ever – whether the notes of the gamut were in the right order – but the debate was more than usually lively. I couldn’t understand half they were talking about, but I felt myself infected with that restless excitement that I have felt often since in groups of men on the night before battle. Quevedo was speaking about the relationship of notes one to another, illustrating his points now by rapping wine glasses with a stiletto, now by singing. By changing round the notes of a popular barcarole, and the words with them, he turned its lilting tune and romantic sentiments into discordant bawdry! The salon echoed with laughter, but Basadonna I noticed was not laughing. Ever and again he consulted his timepiece and shifted restlessly in his chair. Once our eyes met through our masks and I thought I saw a flicker of recognition. But he did nothing, nor did he speak to his companion who was laughing so much at Quevedo’s fooling that her breasts shook like the billowing silks of the Bucintoro when the wind steals beneath them from off the lagoon.

  ‘Now here’s a glass,’ Quevedo was saying holding up a tall, heavy goblet of that pure crystal for which Venice is so justly famed. ‘Here’s a glass, a prince among glasses, such a glass, as should sound a note to rival the music of the spheres. But when I strike it ….’

  And strike it he did with his stiletto. Naturally as he was clasping it tight, the crystal could not reverberate and the only sound was a dull little tinkle.

  ‘What? So little from so regal a glass?’ cried Quevedo. ‘Strike again.’

  He did so, harder. The result was no better, only a little louder.

  ‘What, glass! are you an impostor?’ roared Quevedo. ‘Then one more blow, your last chance, sir!’

  And this time he struck the goblet so hard that it shattered into a thousand scintillas.

  As if at a signal the main doors of the salon burst open and a dozen or more armed men rushed in. I thought for a horrid moment that the Spanish plot had been brought forward and that the attack on the city had begun. Then I saw Quevedo’s face and I knew I was wrong. Beside me Basadonna was on his feet and pulling back the arras behind him. There was a door there and I thought he was trying to escape. But when he opened it I saw a tall, thin man in the dark robes of a Senator, flanked by two guards. Basadonna ripped off his mask and motioned him to enter. As he stepped into the light, I saw it was he of the dead eyes, one of the Three who had interrogated me on my first day in the city.

  He strode by me so close that his robes brushed me as I shrank back in my chair. The leader of the armed men now threw back his cloak to reveal the uniform of a captain of the Ducal Guard and struck his sword against a marble pillar so that sparks flashed, crying, ‘Silence, in the name of the Doge!’

  Gradually the hubbub stilled. When all was so quiet that my own blood roared through my head like the bora, the thin man spoke.

  ‘In the name of the Doge and the Senate, I declare all present to be arrested on suspicion of treason against the State.’

  There was another brief outburst of noise, quickly dying down except for a woman’s half-stifled sobs and someone gently farting out of fear. It might have been me, for that voice, dry rustling like dead leaves across a deserted piazza, filled me with terror.

  I recalled now that I had heard it once more since my interrogation. As I lay half-killed by Basadonna’s ruffiani, this had been the voice which had stayed the killing blow. And if the Three’s enmity was fearful, their incomprehensible friendship was ten times so!

  Some things were instantly clear, though. Basadonna had indeed got his wish and become employed by the State, but in the capacity best suited to his slimy talents, as a spy, reporting on the doings of his ‘friends’ in the Mascherati. God knows why! Unless things were going on in Valier’s house that I knew not of, for nothing treasonable (and little reasonable!) had I ever heard at their meetings.

  But this was not going to save me. The Ten were becoming famous for striking first and apologizing later – to your heirs. I had to get out. Felicia was almost in my grasp – I was not going to lose her a second time.

  Behind me there was a movement. Basadonna was pushing Margharita through the door, hushing her with his finger over her lips. Her expression told me that this slimy spy had not trusted even his own fiancée with the truth of his low employment. I suppose it showed some spark of decency that he was attempting to get her out, but I was not in the mood to make his excuses. All I saw was a slight chance of escape, and suddenly it improved. Gasparo Valier, whose house we were in, was a true gentleman. Knowing there was no way of denying his own involvement in the meeting, he had removed his mask and stepped smoothly forward as though to discuss matters with old dry-tongue.

  ‘Sir,’ he said as he advanced, ‘let us try to throw some light on this matter.’

  And suddenly he hurled himself at a huge, many-branched candelabr
a, throwing it to the ground so that all the flames were extinguished. Immediately all over the room others did the same and within seconds the brilliantly lit salon was in darkness.

  I was out of the door behind the arras like a bolt from a German crossbow. Ahead of me Basadonna was hurrying a protesting Margharita along. Attracted by the renewed and increased uproar behind him he turned and saw my approach. Flinging Margharita aside he reached into his gown. By rights he should have had nothing more harmful there than a stiletto, for swords were rarely worn save by the military. But what came out was a pistol, ready spanned. I dropped to the marble floor as he fired. The ball glanced off a marble Pietà and rattled away down the corridor as I skidded forward and carried Basadonna’s legs from under him. As he fell he dropped his pistol. I caught it in mid-air and, regretting only that it had no ball left to blow his brains out, I attempted to excavate an exit for them with the butt.

  Unfortunately it was a job I had no time to finish. Margharita shrieked for help. Behind us two soldiers had appeared through the salon door. Ahead, coming up the main staircase, I could hear the rattle of more armoured feet.

  Abandoning my noble task, I jumped up and opened the nearest door. As I went in, Margharita flung herself after me. I looked at her in amazement, but instantly saw that what I had taken for a cry for help had been a shriek of terror. She was, after all, her mother’s child, and the working class know that once on the rampage, finders-keepers is the soldiers’ motto. Without Basadonna to protect her, she was just another captured subversive, and with the biggest bubbs in Venice to boot.

  Well, it was a case of follow-your-leader. If she could keep up with me, I wasn’t going to stop her. Pausing only to shove an escritoire against the door, I ran across the room out on to the balcony. There was no escape below; the calle was filled with soldiers. Margharita worked out the same, for after glancing down she turned to me with huge panic in her eyes. I might have smiled at the irony if I had had time. Once before I had experienced this situation, in her father’s house and (in part, at least) at her instigation.