by P. B. Kerr
“He thought that you meant women’s perfume,” said Finlay, trying to ignore the solitary bee that was crawling in his hair. He could only imagine what Groanin was feeling like, covered with bees. Groanin whimpered quietly as Signor Medici sniffed the air around him.
“Can you help him out here, Signor Medici?” asked Finlay.
“Your friend,” said Signor Medici. “He smells just like the peach blossom.” He chuckled. “That’s what they like, my little friends. The smell of the peach blossom.” The chuckle turned into a shrug. “He’ll be all right, your friend, if he no make any sudden moves. Bees, they no like sudden moves. But I’ll fix him, no problem.”
Now that the bees had left Signor Medici’s face, Finlay and John could see he was clean-shaven and completely unharmed by the bees. A small, blue-eyed man, with a round face that belonged in a Warner Brothers cartoon. He went to one of the many beehives and took out a frame containing a whole honeycomb. He put this in a large cardboard box and then laid it in front of Groanin. Then, using his hands, Signor Medici started to gently brush the bees into the box and, gradually, Groanin lost his buzzing beard.
“Thank goodness for that,” he said. “I thought I was toast. I say, I thought I was toast.”
“That would be toast and honey, I imagine,” said Finlay.
“You can laugh, young man,” Groanin said angrily, “but it’s not so comical when you’re the one with a crowd of bees on your mug. I thought my time had come.”
“My little friends, they like your perfume,” said Signor Medici. “That’s what the sign on the gate is for. Can’t you read English?”
So those were the little friends that Nimrod had meant, thought John. Bees. But what could bees do for Faustina? Unless he meant …
“There’s nothing wrong with my English,” insisted Groanin. “For one thing, I’m as English as bread and butter. And for another, that’s not perfume I’m wearing.” Groanin mopped his large, heavily perspiring head with a handkerchief. “Not anymore. That’s the sweat of sheer terror, Signor Medici.”
“Why did you come here, anyway?” asked Signor Medici.
“We came on an errand of mercy,” said Finlay. “Our friend in Venice has an urgent need of an anaphylactic shock. We were told your little friends might help.”
“You mean it’s some bees we’re after?” Groanin asked Finlay.
“Sì, sì,” said Signor Medici. “As well as a beekeeper, I am a registered bee therapist. Bee venom is good for all kinds of ailments: poor circulation, arthritis, asthma, skin disorders, depression.”
“Depression?” said Groanin. “How’s that work then?”
“If you get stung a few times you don’t think so much about your other problems,” said Signor Medici. “Did you bring money?”
Groanin handed him a wad of cash. The Italian counted it and nodded.
“Okay. I find some of my little friends, put them in a box, and then we go.”
“Can we get some special honey, too, please?” asked Finlay.
“Special honey? What do you know about my special honey?”
“Nothing,” said Finlay. “Just that we were told to make sure we bought some.”
Signor Medici counted the money again. “Okay. You give me enough. I will give you some special honey as well.”
“What’s so special about it?” Groanin asked.
Signor Medici laughed. “I will tell you in the car.”
CHAPTER 17
FLOAT LIKE A BUTTERFLY …
While Groanin, Finlay, and John were traveling to and from Padua, Nimrod and Philippa went to the Piazza San Marco, which is the largest public space in Venice — a square with a famous church, a palace, a tall redbrick tower, lots of cafés, open-air orchestras, hundreds of well-fed pigeons, and thousands of tourists.
“Do you think Faustina will be all right where we left her?” Philippa asked Nimrod. “Lying on the terrace.”
“If the maid comes, she’ll just assume she’s sunbathing,” said Nimrod. “Besides, after twelve years inside, the hot sun will do her good. It’s only mundanes who get sunstroke.”
He bought a guidebook that he gave to Philippa. “Here,” he said. “So you’ll know what you’re looking at when you go sightseeing.”
“Aren’t you coming, too?” she asked him.
“No,” he said flatly. “For one thing, I’ve seen everything many times already. And for another, I want to do some serious thinking.”
He sat down outside the Caffé Florian and ordered afternoon tea. Philippa didn’t like tea very much. So, resisting the temptation to tell Nimrod he was being pompous, Philippa did as she was told, although it wasn’t long before she almost wished she hadn’t. Indeed, it wasn’t very long before she almost wished she were somewhere else other than the Piazza San Marco. The heat didn’t bother her. Extreme heat never bothers djinn very much. But the huge numbers of people did make her a little annoyed because it seemed that everyone was intent on seeing the same things she wanted to see. She had to wait in a long line to see the Doge’s Palace, and another even longer line to go up the bell tower. She had never seen so many tourists, and from so many different countries. She began to understand why Nimrod didn’t want to see anything, just to sit outside a café and drink tea and think. Even from the top of the 323-foot-tall tower, it was easy to see him in his red suit. He was, she realized with a smile, just about the easiest person to see in the whole of Venice.
The line for St. Mark’s Church was especially long, and Philippa found herself in the middle of a large tour group of elderly Chinese tourists. All of them were friendly and polite and she was soon reproaching herself for originally wishing they would all disappear. Few of them spoke any English, however, and if she’d had any djinn power she might have wished she could speak Chinese so that she might say something nice to them as they shuffled along the front of the magnificent historic old church to the entrance door at the side.
After a while, her mind wandered a little and she found herself thinking about her mother and wondering how she was and hoping that Faustina might still recover in time for her to make it to Babylon and take over as the next Blue Djinn. Mrs. Trump was also in her thoughts; it was very worrying that she was still in a coma. Most worrying of all, perhaps, was the disappearance of Mr. Rakshasas. Was he dead, as John seemed to think? She hadn’t dared to ask Nimrod what he thought. And she decided that maybe that was what he was thinking about: Mr. Rakshasas and the warrior devils. Quite probably he was trying to figure out the identity of the mysterious Ma Ko who had been mentioned in the emperor’s Jade Book.
That was when she heard it.
Not once but several times. And snapping out of her hot afternoon reverie, she almost felt like pinching herself as she thought she heard one of the Chinese tourists use the words “Ma Ko.” Instead, she tapped the shoulder of the Chinese man standing in front of her and smiled at him. He bowed politely back to her.
“Ma Ko?” she said, and shrugged, trying to indicate that she didn’t know what it was.
“Ma Ko,” he said, and grinned.
This time she threw up her hands. “Ma Ko? What is that?”
The Chinese man pointed to the church. “Ma Ko,” he said.
“What is Ma Ko? A church?”
“Ma Ko.” More pointing.
Philippa shook her head. The Chinese man’s guidebook was the same as Philippa’s, except that hers was in English. He took her book, turned to the relevant page detailing St. Mark’s Church, and pointed to a mosaic picture of St. Mark.
“Ma Ko,” he repeated.
“You mean Mark?” she said. “St. Mark?”
The Chinese man nodded. “Ma Ko,” he said.
Another Chinese man was being pushed back along the line toward her. He was all teeth and glasses, his face one huge smile. It seemed he spoke some English. “Ma Ko?” he said. “That’s how we say ‘Mark’ in Chinese. Ma Ko or sometimes Ma Ho, depending where you come from.”
Philippa than
ked him several times so that he wouldn’t think that she was rude. Then she ran off to find Nimrod.
She found him where she’d left him, his eyes closed, his curious, intelligent face with its slightly crooked nose angled toward the sun like a satellite dish. On the table were the remains of a plate of sandwiches, scones, cakes, and several pots of tea. Pulling up a chair and flicking away a pigeon with Nimrod’s napkin, she sat down, ate a little cake, and stared at him while trying to restrain the triumph she was feeling.
“How’s the thinking coming along?” she said.
He opened his eyes slowly as if he had been asleep. “I was thinking about poor Mr. Rakshasas,” he said. “To be absorbed, at his age. It’s most worrying.” He let out a sigh and drank some tea. “What’s the matter with you? You look like you just found a pearl in an oyster.”
“I did,” she said. “In a manner of speaking. Ma Ko. I know who it is. You’re looking at it.”
Nimrod kept on thinking for a moment. Then he smacked his forehead hard with the flat of his hand. It sounded as loud as if someone had struck him in anger, and an amorous couple drinking champagne at the next table gave Philippa a funny look as if they suspected her of doing it.
“Of course,” groaned Nimrod. “Saint Mark. How could I have been so stupid? And me a Grand Commander of the Order of St. Mark, too. Light my lamp, however did you guess?”
Philippa told him about all the Chinese people who were in the line to get into the church, and how she had overheard their conversations about Ma Ko.
He tutted loudly, exasperated with himself. “I’m afraid this business with Mr. Rakshasas has quite destroyed my powers of concentration,” he said.
“According to my guidebook,” said Philippa, “the church contains the bones of St. Mark.”
“That’s what they say,” said Nimrod.
“Those must be the bones mentioned by the emperor in that Jade Book.” She pointed to a picture in the book. “Look. That’s the sarcophagus where he’s buried.”
Nimrod was looking doubtful.
“What?” she demanded. “Isn’t the book right?”
“Oh, the book’s right insofar as that is certainly what is claimed,” said Nimrod. “But many people, myself included, think the body of the saint perished in the great fire of 976. It was certainly missing in 1094 when the Venetian authorities conducted a search for it. A few months later, there was a small earthquake and, it is believed, the saint’s body was miraculously found again.”
“Miraculously?”
“Not to say conveniently.” Nimrod shrugged. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
“So the bones aren’t there at all? Is that what you’re saying?”
“No, they might actually be there,” said Nimrod. “Somewhere. Just not in that sarcophagus beneath the high altar. My own theory is that they are most likely lying rather more anonymously somewhere in the church reliquary. That’s a place where all sorts of holy relics are kept. Bones, teeth, hair, bits of wood, blood, you name it. People used to claim all sorts of bits and pieces had come from one saint or another. Relics were big business back in the Middle Ages. The reliquary in St. Mark’s is one of the biggest and oldest in the world. My guess is that if the bones are in there, that’s where we’ll find them. If the Emperor Chengzong and his Jade Book is right, we’re going to need them when we go to China.”
“Are we going to China?” asked Philippa.
“Just as soon as we’ve helped Faustina,” said Nimrod. “I don’t doubt she’s right, too — that something strange is happening in the world of spirit that we need to find out more about.”
“The trick is letting the bee sting without killing the bee,” said Signor Medici.
“Is that possible?” asked Nimrod.
“If you know what you are doing,” he said.
“Sorry about this, Faustina,” said Nimrod, “but it’s for your own good, I think.”
“I’ve never actually revived someone with the bee sting before,” confessed Signor Medici. “This is a first for me. Where would you like the bee to sting her?” And holding one of his “little friends” with a pair of tweezers, Cesare Medici sat down on the sun lounger beside Faustina’s immobile body. “On her back? On her shoulder? Please. You say where.”
“On her earlobe,” said Nimrod. “That’s what Mr. Rakshasas told me, anyway.”
“Oh, I say,” said Groanin, covering his eyes, “I don’t know where to look.”
“On her earlobe?” repeated Signor Medici.
Nimrod nodded.
Signor Medici smiled and said something in Italian that Philippa took to be the Italian word for “earlobe.” And still holding the bee by the head with the tweezers, he tapped it on the thorax a couple of times just to make it mad enough to sting. The bee did its job, stinging her almost immediately, and soon there was a livid red mark on Faustina’s earlobe.
“Ouch,” said Philippa, biting her lip.
Faustina twitched, quite noticeably, it seemed to Philippa, and then remained motionless.
“Two bees or not two bees,” said Nimrod. “That is the question. Once more I think, Signor Medici. On the other earlobe this time.”
The Italian nodded and extracted another bee from the little tackle box he had brought from Padua. Philippa had looked at it while he was going about his work with the tweezers; each bee lived in its own little glass-topped compartment with a few drops of honey to feed it. Like a little prisoner.
The second sting produced a much more violent twitch of Faustina’s head, as if someone had passed a strong current of electricity through her. Like a frog in some school biology experiment. That was what Philippa thought. She’d always hated that part of doing biology.
“Ouch,” said Philippa, more loudly this time.
“I do bee-lieve we’re almost there now,” said Nimrod. “One more should do it. This time, on her bee-hind. No, perhaps not. On the inside of her wrist, I think, Signor Medici.”
“I don’t know how you can joke about this, Uncle Nimrod,” said Philippa. “That looks painful.”
“Okay,” said Signor Medici. “Now I use my special bee. This bee, he’s a very tough bee. Very angry. Got a real attitude problem. Not sweet and friendly like most of my bees. He doesn’t even like honey. He doesn’t like anything. It’s why I keep him in a separate box. I call him Silvio.”
From another box he took out a bee much larger than the other two, which had a buzz that sounded like a small chain saw.
Philippa looked at the bee and winced as Signor Medici held the bee on Faustina’s wrist and then flicked it casually. The bee buzzed angrily, bent his abdomen down, braced himself against the flesh with his hind legs, and then stabbed his stinger into the girl’s wrist with all his strength, delivering, for good measure, an extra amount of bee venom.
“Yarooo!”
Faustina let out a loud shriek, grabbed her wrist and then her earlobes with both hands, which knocked the tweezers out of Signor Medici’s hands. Silvio, the bee, now free from his owner’s control, settled on Faustina’s forearm and then stung again. And then again.
“Yarooo!”
Faustina jumped up from the sun lounger, scrambled up onto the high balcony, and, seeing the bee come after her a fourth time, launched herself off the side of the hotel in an elegant swan dive straight down into the waters of the Grand Canal.
Nimrod and Philippa ran to the edge and looked over just in time to see Faustina rise to the surface and swim to the side of the canal. A small crowd gathered to watch. And quite quickly, it seemed to Philippa, it grew even larger. She grabbed a terry cloth robe and ran out of the door and downstairs, ready to save Faustina’s blushes. Nimrod laughed loudly.
“A result, I think, Signor Medici,” said Nimrod. “Mission accomplished. Well done, sir. Well done.”
Signor Medici looked around and then shrugged. “I lost my best bee,” he said unhappily.
Nimrod handed him another handful of banknotes. “Here,” he said. “Get you
rself a hiveful.”
CHAPTER 18
STING LIKE A BEE
Faustina walked back into the hotel with Philippa. She hardly cared about the sensational effect her appearance in the water had worked on the gondoliers — Venice’s famous boatmen — who were already calling her “la sirena americana,” which is Italian for “American mermaid.” All that mattered was that she was in her own skin again and that everything felt just great. She was deliriously happy. Even her dip in the Grand Canal had been enjoyable — especially as it had relieved the pain of five bee stings. What was even better was the realization that the djinn power was back in her body. Just feeling the hot Venetian sun on her face had told her that much.
They were walking toward the elevator when Faustina heard a voice she recognized.
“Faustina?”
“Mom?”
Jenny Sachertorte hugged the daughter she hadn’t seen for twelve years and tried to control her tears. Faustina hugged her back, hardly caring if she got her mother wet or not. She was so happy to see her.
“Mom, what are you doing here?”
“Did you think I could stay away from my own daughter?”
“I was so mad at you,” said Faustina. “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” said Jenny Sachertorte. “So am I.”
“It wasn’t your fault. What happened, with Dybbuk. I know that now. It wasn’t your fault. I’m sorry I blamed you. I’m sorry I did what I did to the British prime minister.”
“Let’s talk about it later.”
“But how did you know I was here?” asked Faustina.
“Nimrod, of course,” said Dr. Sachertorte. “As soon as he heard your spirit had been found, he telephoned me. At first, I didn’t dare come in case it didn’t work. I mean, your getting back inside your own body. But then I realized I had to come, regardless of what happened.”
“It very nearly didn’t work,” said Faustina, laughing. “When I got back in my body I sort of seized up. I couldn’t move a muscle. I could hear and see everything around me, but I was paralyzed. But for the help of some bees I might still be that way.”