Claire reached into her tote bag for a pen and the books she’d brought along, taking out Marmont’s History of the Counter Reformation. She could read and make notes, at least. She wiggled her toes and thought about taking off her shoes. Once she’d finished reading, she could relax for a while, maybe even get some sleep. After all, the girl couldn’t get into any trouble on the plane.
The Emperor
15 September 1617
THE MEAT WAS tough and the wine—malmsey, the Venetians called it—was too sweet, Bedmar groused to himself as he ate alone in his private rooms at the Spanish embassy. He was the ambassador, by Christ; why was he served the same fare given to his legion of bravi belowstairs? It was time to trade in the old Castilian who’d come with him from Madrid for a chef versed in the local cuisine, although these Venetians could sometimes take creativity to curious lengths. He’d been to a banquet at Ca’ Barbarigo the week before where all the food had been gilded—the fruit, the pheasant, even the bread had been covered in a thin layer of gold. It had occurred to him then that the only thing Venetians loved more than money was flaunting it. Odd as it was, though, it had been a better meal than this one.
He pushed his tray away and stretched out his legs toward the fire. At his feet, his wolfhound whimpered and turned in his sleep, firelight gleaming on his coppery coat. The sight of it calmed him, and the ambassador closed his eyes for a moment.
His apartment on the top floor of the embassy was the only place he could find any peace. Day and night, the embassy was swarming with Spaniards of every stripe, each of them desiring his attention, patronage, influence. Sometimes he thought it was the busiest place in all of Venice: the anterooms and corridors were full of slouching figures whispering together in groups, waiting for an audience with him. Even as a commander of Phillip III’s regiment, Bedmar had never felt so harassed in his life. He’d taken a villa in the country so he could escape it from time to time, but the crowd of hangers-on simply followed. He swore that when he was viceroy, he’d have an entire palazzo to himself.
Viceroy of Venice. Most of the time, these were pleasant words that brought him a deep satisfaction. Venice was the only major power in all of Italy that hadn’t yet surrendered to Spain’s domination, and it would be Spain’s crown jewel; no other city could boast of the riches that Venice possessed. Once he’d taken Venice, a good portion of the city’s wealth would be his, and the king would surely reward him with a dukedom.
The conquest of Venice was the final step toward his lifelong ambition of restoring his family’s reputation and position. He’d spent three decades repairing the damage his father had done to the name of de la Cueva, to their lands, to their wealth. It had taken years to regain his place at court, but at last he was on the verge of getting everything he desired. No, Bedmar corrected himself, everything he deserved. But tonight he felt the strain of the plan that he and Ossuna had devised.
Unless he obtained more money for arms and men, the success of their enterprise was far from certain. The French corsairs had been tough negotiators, and he would require a few hundred more recruits. For days he’d agonized over writing to the king, and he couldn’t put it off any longer. But how to proceed? An outright request wouldn’t do. Even if the king responded favorably, the duke of Lerma, the king’s powerful minister, would be loath to do anything to further Bedmar’s aims; their antipathy went back many years. But if he could compose it in such a way that the king felt compelled to act, in such a way that Lerma could not oppose it without opposing the king, he might be successful.
He stood up and crossed to his desk. A breeze rattled the windows, carrying with it the ever present stench of the canals and a presentiment of autumn. Bedmar felt his insides turn. From the pestilential marsh that surrounded it to the innumerable waterways that laced it together, the entire city was rank. Even within the grandest palazzi, he could smell the decay. It seeped up from the foundations into the stones and the mortar and the brick, into the filigreed plaster and the marble, into the mosaic tile and the ornate, gilded rooms. Not for the first time he wondered what had possessed men to build these opulent treasure chests on top of a swamp. Was it solely for the pleasure of their beauty? He’d never before encountered a people so concerned with appearances, with the surface of things.
“The entire city is dedicated to Venus,” he’d written to the king soon after he arrived. Even now, years later, Bedmar wasn’t certain if his words revealed condemnation or fascination. Was it possible to be simultaneously repulsed and attracted?
Since his posting to Venice, he sometimes had the odd sensation of being unsure of himself. At times he imagined that he looked different than he used to and was surprised to see his familiar face in the mirror. In outward aspect he was the same, but he felt himself a changed man. After years of soldiering, after decades of discipline and deprivation, how quickly he had discovered his appetite for Venice’s epicurean delights: food, women, and all the trappings of wealth, from the finest fabrics to the most luxurious furnishings. He never admitted it, but in Venice he felt a constant unease: it brought forth the half-buried knowledge that he carried within himself the same weaknesses that had contributed to his father’s disgrace.
The city exerted a hold over him that he was powerless to deny. At night, when he saw the light from gondola lanterns shining upon the water, or heard the tinkle of music and a courtesan’s contralto laughter, the fever would come on him again, and he would feel the need for a woman’s musky perfume upon his mouth and fingers, for a pair of limpid eyes that opened and closed with desire, for budding lips that sighed their satisfaction in his ear. Venice certainly had the advantage over any other city when it came to those particular pleasures, and La Sirena was the latest and most extraordinary example. Venice gilded its food and its women, Bedmar thought with an ironic snort. When he’d first set eyes on her, he hadn’t even realized that she was real; he’d thought she was a golden sculpture of the most perfect woman ever imagined. Now it was La Sirena more than any other who lured him out into the Venetian night.
Nocturnal Venice was a place unique to itself, a strange aquatic realm ruled not by Poseidon but by Morpheus, god of dreams and delusions. For only Morpheus could conjure the spell that transformed Venice into the shimmering, ethereal world it became once the sun had set: a place where flickering torchlight turned solid stone into rippling illusions of water and light, where bejeweled sirens on silently gliding barks exposed their breasts to the night, and the fevered moans of masked liaisons echoed from dark doorways. Only in the cool wash of dawn did reason return, and the truth become apparent: the real Venice was not so much a seductress as an eternal Narcissus reflected in a thousand watery mirrors, an aloof divinity made all the more vulnerable by vanity. The enchantment faded and he felt in possession of himself again, poised to pluck his prize. Becoming viceroy of Venice would be his greatest victory in a lifetime of victories. Neither Ossuna nor even Lerma could touch him then.
At his desk, the ambassador opened a slender drawer and withdrew quills, ink, and paper. In another drawer he found a brass key, which he used to open a small, lacquered damaschina-style chest, painted with intricate red, blue, and green arabesques. The chest contained only one item: an untitled book, which he also placed on the desk.
The morocco-bound book was rare, only one of two copies. The other was in the possession of Philip III’s secretary, who used it in the same manner as Bedmar did: to code and decode letters between the ambassador and the king. The method was a simple one: the words of the message were substituted with a numeric code consisting of the page number, line, and position of the corresponding word in the book. Simple, but effective; even the code breakers who worked round the clock at the Doge’s Palace could not decipher his letters without the book. First he would write the letter, then with the book create the encrypted copy.
Bedmar sat down and sharpened a quill. He considered an opening line, but quickly discarded it. No pleading, no begging, he reminded himsel
f. If he could raise the king’s ire against the Venetians, however, the king might offer help of his own accord and Lerma would not be able to argue against it. The ambassador dipped the quill into the ink and began to write.
Your Majesty,
The crimes of the Republic against your Crown and against the Holy Church become more insidious with each passing day. Venice has always sought to slander the name of Spain, but at present they respect no bounds of decency…
Bedmar stopped suddenly, surprised by the appearance of a servant who’d come in to pick up the dinner tray. “What in God’s name are you doing here?” he grumbled angrily.
“Pardon me, Your Excellency. I knocked, but there was no answer. I thought you’d gone.” He was an ungainly sort, with a pockmarked face, a scrawny neck, and a large Adam’s apple that bobbed up and down when he spoke. His eyes ranged over Bedmar’s desk.
“As you can see perfectly well, I haven’t. Announce yourself next time.” Bedmar looked at him more carefully. “Who are you? Where’s Pasquale?”
“He’s taken ill, Your Excellency. Tomás Esquivel, at your service, sir.”
“To whom do you report?”
“Don Rodrigo, same as Pasquale, Your Excellency.”
“Tell Don Rodrigo never to send up a new man without telling me first, you understand?” Bedmar didn’t wait for an answer. “Now get out.”
Bedmar’s gondolier rowed into the Rio di San Martino, heading toward the Grand Canal. The marquis leaned back against the gondola cushions and slowly ran his hand over his beard, as if his thoughts were far away.
“I’m looking forward to tonight’s performance,” Alessandra said, less because it was true than to break the silence.
“The baronessa’s entertainments are always diverting.” Bedmar looked at her as he spoke, but he seemed preoccupied. More so than her other lovers—of whom there were now five—the marquis was an enigma. Alessandra wondered what he thought of her and realized that she might never know. Bedmar was an intensely private man who seldom shared his thoughts. She suspected that he regarded her as a kind of pretty trinket, a possession, a china doll without a soul. Perhaps that was how he thought of all women—the ones who caught his notice, at any rate. With another man she might have felt resentful, but with Bedmar it felt safer to play the role he wanted her to play. Though he’d never threatened her with any harm, she sensed that he was dangerous.
Even though La Celestia had often told her that men were generally simple creatures, Alessandra suspected the ambassador was not. He could be charming or taciturn by turns, and at times she witnessed a brooding anger that made her uneasy. But then he was Spanish, not Venetian, and perhaps his foreignness made him more difficult for her to fathom. She felt an easier intimacy with her Venetian lovers than she felt with the marquis. They regaled her with their long-ago exploits in war and their more recent successes in business and politics. Bedmar deflected any personal inquiries with polite firmness.
But when Alessandra had expressed her concerns to La Celestia, the courtesan had breezily dismissed them.
“I know he does not flatter and give trinkets as much as other men,” La Celestia said, “but he has been more than generous with his purse. And does he not express his delight with you in other ways?”
She’d told La Celestia about that, too. Bedmar’s desire for her was fierce, and he was a skilled lover, with a sure touch that never failed to arouse her.
The marquis turned to his gondolier. “Take the Rio della Fava,” he said, and the gondolier responded with a flourish of his hand. He was a young man a year or two older than herself, thin but apparently strong, with deep-set eyes circled by shadows.
“Your new gondolier—is he mute?” she asked.
“Yes, thankfully. Paolo’s the one man in Venice who cannot reveal my secrets.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the name of the lovely courtesan in my gondola tonight.”
“Did you know that gondoliers take an oath never to reveal anything they witness in a gondola? The penalty for breaking the oath is death.”
“I have heard that. I’ve also heard that gondoliers have webbed feet, and that to a man they are born on a mysterious island during a full moon.”
They were getting closer to the Grand Canal and the Rialto. “There’s still time before we reach Palazzo Erizzo,” he said, drawing her closer. One hand cupped her breast as he brought his mouth to hers; the other slipped down under her skirts and slowly moved higher. He ran his fingers along the inside of her thighs, then pulled her underneath him. She felt herself acquiescing, her body rising to meet his. The marquis reached up and drew the curtains, enclosing them inside the felze.
“I see you don’t believe in your gondolier’s discretion,” Alessandra said.
“I don’t believe in fairy tales. Gondoliers are men like any other. After all, this is Venice. There are spies everywhere.”
The Hermit
9 October 1617
IN THE DUSKY, intimate hush of Sant’ Alvise, a gnomelike figure, clad in a tattered wool robe and worn leather sandals, loitered near the altar and looked out at the empty church. Roast pheasant, perhaps, or duck stuffed with cherries and apples, Ippolito Moro thought wistfully. Apulian wine, crayfish, and quail, followed by sugared almonds and marchpane with cinnamon…oh, the feast he would enjoy tonight, just for being Batù’s eyes and ears.
Any moment now, the secret assignation would begin, as it had once a week for the past three weeks. The last Mass of the day was done, the priests had gone, and the nuns had disappeared from the choir balcony, the sequestered site of their devotions. All that remained were the lingering odors of smoky incense, sour unwashed bodies, sweet beeswax candles that flickered and hissed. And Ippolito, waiting, anticipating, his robe still dotted with bits of straw from his afternoon nap.
“Ippolito!” Priest Domenico, impatient and entirely lacking in the spirit of tolerance on which he had just pontificated, called from the vestry. “Ippolito! Hurry up, now!”
The dwarf snatched the Bible and the chalice from the pulpit, cradling the hallowed items in his arms as he hobbled over to the vestry door where Priest Domenico stood, looking disgruntled. The priest’s face grew fatter every day, Ippolito noticed with disgust; eventually his eyes would look like two tiny black olives surrounded by pink flesh, just like a suckling pig. Hmmm. Roast pork might be tasty, too.
“Take care this time,” Domenico said as Ippolito pushed past him. “If I find that chalice on the floor again, you won’t be sacristan any longer.”
A pox on you, Ippolito thought as he watched the priest’s retreating figure. He wasn’t worried by Domenico’s threats. He’d been at Sant’ Alvise for more than twenty years, long enough to see many priests come and go, long enough to lose the esteem he’d once felt for them. Parasites all, sucking up the bounty of the convent. The sisters routinely used up their rations of flour and eggs to bake bisquits and cakes for the rapacious priests, while he, Ippolito their faithful servant, got nothing but scraps. But whose fault was that? The uppity nuns were hardly generous themselves. Only Sister Brodata—homely Sister Brodata, of the ample bottom and the unfortunate mustache—was friendly; but now, he reflected sorrowfully, even she was shunning him. But it was the priests’ fault, not his! Brodata herself had complained that they ate all the food, and Ippolito had sniggered, “Be careful or they’ll take your virginity, too…unless, of course, you’ve already given it away.”
Brodata knew at once he’d been talking about Priest Fabrizio, whom he’d seen fawning over her, even though the old goat already had a mistress over at San Sepolcro. Brodata refused to speak to him now, but Ippolito knew she was only pretending to be angry; in truth she was flattered and secretly pleased. She wanted people to believe that the priest was sweet on her, no matter what cost to her honor. But what did these nuns care about honor?
He shook his head vigorously, as if to clear it. If Brodata didn’t want to be friends anymore, he would simply st
op thinking of her! He had more important things to attend to, certainly. He would be a rich man tonight, if all went well; rich enough, at least, to buy himself a decent meal; even, perhaps, Ippolito thought as he returned to the nave, rich enough to take a stroll over to the Bridge of Tits, where the gentle meretrici would consider his money as good as any man’s, regardless of his shrunken form and bandy legs.
He wondered what old Brodata would say about that. No doubt she’d deliver a sermon on the sins of the flesh, he thought darkly, along with dire threats of the morbo gallico, the French disease. He remembered a priest from long ago who’d tried to convince Ippolito to give up lusting after whores; why gamble on those pox-ridden prostitutes, he’d said, when love between men is as good or better? I’d rather take my chances with the gallico than with the gallows! Ippolito had cackled, pleased with his own wit. Everyone knew that sodomy was a hanging offense, and a sin against God, and that was why the wise men of the Republic encouraged the meretrici to expose their breasts in public: to remind men of the proper expression of their desires.
Ippolito waited near the altar once again. In the church’s echoing quiet he heard the sound of water slowly dripping, then a sudden trill of conversation from the courtyard. It occurred to him that if things did not happen as he’d said they would, that blue-eyed devil, Batù Vrats, would make his life a living hell. He’d heard that Batù was not forgiving of mistakes. Ippolito wondered if he were nearby, watching and waiting. The thought made him shiver.
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