The Vault of bones bp-2

by Pip Vaughan-Hughes

  'Mistress Letice’ crowed a throaty Venetian voice, there was a scraping and clanking, and the postern door opened.

  'Jacopo’ said Letice, I fear we have come too late, and must chase Signor Nicholas back to Venice!'

  'Alas, yes’ said Jacopo. He was a well-fed and well-watered fellow in his middle years, with swollen hands and rheumy eyes. I guessed he took a keen interest in the running of his masters cellars. 'But you are expected’ he went on. 'And where is Signor Dardi?' he enquired, looking me up and down curiously as Letice and I stepped into the little courtyard, a high-walled space adorned with orange trees in clay pots and with carved plaques bearing what I assumed were the Querini arms. It smelled faintly of new mortar. 'Dardi sent me ahead. He remains in Constantinople’ said Letice, as the gate shut behind us. ‘I am to set things in order here in the meantime’

  'Good, good!' said Jacopo with evident relief. We are all so looking forward to Signor Dardi taking up his new position,' he added, his words oozing with desperately feigned sincerity.

  'I am sure that you are’ said Letice, regarding him down the length of her nose. The man cringed slightly, or perhaps I was imagining things. 'Now. Master Nicholas left me instructions. Did he leave anything here, anything of importance he carried out of Constantinople?' 'No thing’ said Jacopo. 'No actual thing…'

  'A chest, an extremely valuable chest’ Letice prompted him. 'I am to make sure that it is locked up in the strongest room you have.'

  'A chest?' asked Jacopo, looking more and more puzzled. 'No, no, nothing like that.'

  'Perhaps not a chest’ said Letice. 'A box. A… a package, about this big?' She glanced at me, and gestured with her hands, the width of a man's head.

  'Absolutely not, I am afraid’ said Jacopo blankly. 'He brought spices for the kitchens and a bolt of silk for hanging in the great hall, but… no, apart from our guest, he left nothing more than that.' ‘Your guest?' said Letice sharply.

  'I speak lightly’ said Jacopo apologetically. 'The man whom my lord brought from Constantinople – we are to hold him until such time…'

  'Holding him?' I asked, feeling as if I were about to fall down upon the flagstones, so strong was the blood running about my skull. 'The… the Frenchman?'

  'Jacopo, I have not presented Signor Petrus, lately come into my lord's service’ said Letice smoothly, as Jacopo's wet eyes grew round with surprise.

  'He is French, yes indeed’ said Jacopo. 'So you know of whom I speak. Good. I was beginning to worry that he would die before… ah, yes. Signor Dardi was going to ask him some questions’

  'Indeed he was’ I said grimly. 'Well, Signor Dardi has entrusted the asking to me’

  The man gave a great whooshing sigh of relief. 'How marvellous’ he wheezed. 'I… Signor Querini knows I am not the equal to such special tasks. I was sure I would fail him. Would… would you like to see him now? No, no, forgive me. I must settle you first. You are tired, you are hungry – you are waiting for your effects to come ashore. Signora, should I send men to fetch them?'

  'No, no. The master of the ship has taken care of it. No, let us see this Frenchman of yours – Signor Petrus had better talk to him before he expires, eh?'

  I nodded, trying to look cold and uninterested. Jacopo wasted no more time. He spun on his heel and led us into the castle. I was suddenly overcome by the urge to draw my sword and divide the fat little man down the centre, but I resisted it.

  'How many men does your garrison number?' I asked, in what I hoped was a bored voice. I was not permitting myself the smallest morsel of hope, for false hope is a greater affliction than no hope at all. 'Five’ said Jacopo over his shoulder. 'And ten Greek lads – but they are all down in the village today, for they are celebrating one of their vile, schismatic holy days tomorrow’

  We passed through the hall, where a great fireplace adorned with the Querini shield had yet to be swept. Then we climbed, first one straight stair, then a winding one. I had expected us to descend, for were not prisoners kept in dungeons? But perhaps new castles did not have dungeons. I glanced at Letice, but she was staring at Jacopo's quivering backside, a dangerous blankness upon her face. The memory of Dardi's shocked face came back to me, and I prayed silently that she was not planning some new revenge, for this was her world and I knew almost nothing about it, nor what she might be capable of.

  'Here we are!' panted Jacopo at last. We must have reached the very top of the castle, for there were no more stairs, and we stood on a landing with two closed doors facing us. A rush lamp was burning down in a sconce. Jacopo turned a key and opened the nearest door. The room was small, but the walls were newly whitewashed, and the low winter sun was slanting in through the narrow window. It was far from a dungeon, but there was something cold and desperate about it: something dead. There were no furnishings of any sort save for a straw pallet on the tiled floor under the window. And upon it a naked man lay stretched out upon his belly, one hand lolling, palm up and fingers limp, upon the tiles. Letice stayed Jacopo and I with an imperious raised finger, walked briskly across the room and squatted down before the man. She reached down and grabbed a handful of his iron-grey hair and raised his head, but I could not see the face, for it was hidden by her thigh.

  Letice dropped the lolling head and, straightening, she turned to Jacopo.

  ‘It is he,' she said. You may leave us alone with him. We will ask some questions and, depending upon the answers – if answers there be – Signor Petrus will take the wretch onwards with him to Venice’

  Jacopo beamed and almost leaped from the room, closing the door after him. As soon as the latch clicked I hurled myself over to the pallet and dropped to the floor beside Letice. The man’s face was sunk into the straw. I reached for him, then paused. His back was a contorted mass of scabs, some crusted over, some pink and suppurating, that roiled over the livid skin like a tangle of lobworms. There was a heavy stench of piss and spoiled meat. But the shoulders rose and fell faintly, so I swallowed and, wincing, gently rolled the head over.

  Captain de Montalhac licked his blistered lips and his eyelids fluttered, but both eyes were bruised black and swollen shut. Dried blood had blocked both nostrils. But he breathed, he lived. I had held the things that witnessed the Resurrection of Our Lord in my hands, but they had been dumb. The dead are dead, and they do not return. The bones of Constantinople's Greeks; the withered clay of the relics I had stolen and sold; Anna… they would not come back. It is not the dead who are abandoned, it is the living. But I had been alone, and now the Captain had returned to me. I bent down and kissed his brow.

  'Patch?' he said, although it was no more than a sigh, and I had to lean so close that I felt his breath flutter upon my ear. 'Patch? They have you.' He seemed to go limp, and I took his shoulder and shook it gently, urgently.

  'No, Master,' I whispered, smoothing the matted hair away from his burning forehead. 'I have come for you. You are safe.'

  'They have the letter,' he said suddenly, clearly, his good eye opening very wide.

  'No, no!' I exclaimed. ‘I have it. And more. Let us be gone from here. Can you rise?'

  He tried to roll himself over, but could not. Taking off my cloak, I draped it carefully over his wounded back, pushed my arm under his shoulder and tried to heave him up, but he was heavy. 'Letice,' I called softly, 'can you persuade friend Jacopo to call out the guards? We must bring my master to the ship’ She gazed at me for a second, eyes narrowed, then nodded and went to the door. She left the room and I heard her voice, raised and hectoring, and Jacopo's, wheedling and then relieved; and then the sound of feet on stone stairs. Letice peered around the door.

  'He will fetch them, and a litter’ she said. 'He's fucking delighted to be rid of your master, so if we play it very fine, I believe we will be away from here without any trouble.’ She came and knelt beside me. 'Jacopo is a fool, but not much of one. He hates this island, for he misses Venice and his bum-boys. It is my guess he had nothing to do with this -' and she laid her hand gen
tly upon the Captain's matted head. It looked very long and white against the blood-seized ropes of black and grey – 'for he is not cruel, merely greedy. He fears Dardi above all things, and believes that your master will die, and that Dardi will want to make someone's flesh suffer as a consequence – Jacopo's flesh, I mean. If we do not push him I think he will believe what he wishes to believe.' She gazed down at the Captain and crossed herself slowly. 'The guards did this, I expect. Nicholas would not soil his hands. But he finds it a simple matter to squeeze cruelty out of others,' she muttered, and her shoulders stiffened for a moment. Footsteps sounded upon the stair.

  The guards – the young lad from the gatehouse and three others, stubbly and hungover Venetian stevedores, by the looks of them – heaved the Captain on to a stretcher and, cursing, manhandled him down the stairs. It seemed to take hours, and I was terrified that they would drop him, but in the end we reached the hall, and they dumped their burden down upon the dining table.

  'Did he come with any effects – clothes, documents, the like?' I asked Jacopo. He considered for a moment, bustled away and came back a while later, bearing a dark bundle. Although the cloth was filthy, I recognized the black damask of the robe he had worn the day he left Constantinople.

  And the rest?' I snapped. Jacopo, clearly expecting to be praised, cringed a little and shook his head.

  'Nothing, Signor,' he said. 'He came ashore in these clothes

  I did not believe him, but the men-at-arms had stopped panting like blown carthorses, and we must needs be gone from here. I snapped my fingers as I hoped Facio might do, and the Captain was heaved up on to four shoulders and carried, wreathed in muttered curses, out of the hall and out of the Castle of Stampalia. Down through the narrow, winding alleys of the village, down through the olive trees, past the fishermen, who averted their eyes this time. The stretcher was edged on to the jolly-boat, and I began to help Letice aboard.

  'Signora Letitia, where are you going?' Jacopo whined. He was dancing from foot to foot, as if in dire need of a piss.

  'To give Signor Petrus his instructions, and to pay the ship's master,' she snapped. 'I have dealt with too many fools already today,' she added dangerously, 'to imagine that Messer Nicholas' instructions will be carried out merely because I wish them to be. I will send Petrus on his way and then come back to deal with things here. You will await me at the castle.' And with that she snapped her fingers at the oarsmen, and I pushed the little boat off the shingle and vaulted over the gunwale as the oars bit and we began to surge seawards. Jacopo watched us, still doing his dance of indecision, while the soldiers turned and began to trudge up the beach. Letice and I steadied the Captain, and as the swell took the boat and the oars began to kick up spray, he turned his head to me and opened his eye. We regarded each other for a while, silently, and then he took a great lungful of the cold, brine-sharpened air. The corners of his mouth turned up, perhaps, a fraction, and he laid his hand upon mine. I looked at Letice. She was watching the Captain, her white face tight with a bitter sympathy.

  Will you pray for him?' I asked. ‘I cannot, and he would not wish me to. But if you will.. ‘I will’ she said, and closed her eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  There was a little space below decks, away from where the men slept and not too near the bilges, a nook surrounded by barrels and coils of rope, and there we made a bed for the Captain. There he lay for a long day and night, attended by Michael Scot and by the Dominicans who, after they had overcome their distress at his terrible state, became quite transported with joy. They knelt at his side, deep in prayer, while I watched from the shadows. I hoped the Captain would not wake and find them there, for the sight of two black-swathed agents of the Inquisition hunched over him like ravens might well finish what Nicholas Querini had begun. Michael had found tincture of poppy in the barber's physic chest, and he did not wake, even when we cleaned his wounds with sea-water – a measure Michael insisted upon, for the salve which the barber wished to use smelled like a mouse drowned and rotted in piss-thinned pine tar – and wrapped them in clean linen. He had been scourged, I guessed; beaten and kicked, and hung up by his wrists, for there were rope burns there and his elbows were swollen.

  ‘I fear for him’ said Michael simply, after the Captains wounds had been bandaged to his satisfaction. 'He is not young.'

  I had never thought of that before. But Captain de Montalhac must be close to his fiftieth year, I supposed. He was not old, I told myself, but no, perhaps not young after all. I kept my vigil beyond the edge of the lantern light, wrapped tightly in my own thoughts, for a day and a night, and into the next day. At some point, Letice came to huddle with me, and tried to comfort me with soft words, but I could not be companionable, and so she left again. The Captain had started a fever, and Michael had rifled the barbers chest while the poor fellow looked on in horror, measuring out powders and essences, and dosing his patient first with one mixture, then another; and then, when nothing seemed to take effect, he joined the brothers in prayer. When I saw that Michael Scot himself had resigned himself to the Captain's death, and that my master was going to die in an airless hold amongst cargo and bilgewater, I called Michael aside and asked that the Captain be taken up on deck, for I knew that he would wish to die under the sky, in the salt air, and not in this hole. I thought he would protest, but instead he agreed, and the four of us, with the help of some crewmen, carried the limp body up into the sunlight. I laid a pallet for him near the prow, where he would not be tripped over by the sailors, and when he was settled I wiped the sweat from his forehead and waved the brothers away, for I wished him to be free of their pious mummery, at least until he was beyond its reach.

  The wind was blowing away the stink of sickness and fouled wounds, and in the sunlight I noticed that the bruising on the Captain's face was fading a little. I bent down and whispered in his ear.

  'Breathe, dear Master, breathe in the air. The gulls are wheeling, the sea is running, and we are sailing west. Breathe.'

  I called for wine and, dipping my finger in it, wet his lips. The sun crept around and fell upon him, warming the black cloak with which I had draped his body. I hardly took my eyes from him, for I was expecting at any moment to see his chest cease its shallow heaving. But instead of failing, his breath began to steady and his chest to rise more strongly, until I could hear the air passing between his lips. Not daring to hope myself, I beckoned Michael over, and he bent down and searched the Captains face.

  'The fever has broken’ he said. 'That is very good. Keep watch, and give him wine if he will take it’

  I raised his head and trickled a thread of wine between his teeth, but too much, for he spluttered and gagged. And then he opened his eyes. 'Petroc’ he murmured. 'Do not say a word to.. ‘

  ‘You are safe, Master’ I told him, tears welling up in my eyes. ‘You are on a ship bound for Italy. We found you on Stampalia’ 'The Venetian.. ‘

  'I know. I worked it out, too late of course. Do not worry: I have the letter, and… and some other things’

  Things?' said the Captain, and he tilted his head ever so slightly. I held the cup to his lips, and after he had drunk – a proper draught this time – he gave me a weak smile. 'Things, do you say?'

  'I do say. Now sleep, sir, for you must be well soon. I cannot be expected to treat with kings and emperors by myself, can I?'

  He smiled again and laid his head down, and watched the clouds for a while before drifting into a wholesome sleep. And I fell asleep too, like a dog, my head on his chest. When I awoke it was evening, and Letice was tucking a fur blanket around me. 'How is he?' I gasped, for I had been having dark dreams. 'He is well. He took some gruel, and now he sleeps’ she told me, pushing me down firmly. 'Between you and Master Scotus you have cured him, I think.'

  'He cured himself,' I said, closing my eyes in relief. I felt her lie down beside me. She stretched out, close enough that our bodies did not touch, but I could feel her there.

  Well, Master Dog, y
ou are a physician as well,' she said softly. 'As well as what?'

  'Oh: thief, murderer, priest – I mean monk – papal envoy…'

  'How do you know about that?' I demanded, sitting bolt upright. She did not move, but grinned up at me.

  'I was laying you down, and your chest crinkled and crackled,' she said. Thought there was something amiss, but instead I found a letter with a fucking great lead seal! She whispered the last words, and her smile widened, and grew even wider as I slapped my hand to my breast and felt the reassuring weight of the papal bull.

  'Listen, Petroc,' she said, her smile fading. When your Captain wakes up – I mean properly – there will be a deal of explaining to do, and it seems quite likely that a certain girl from London might get slung over the rail; and I can't say as I'd blame anybody for doing it. But I'd rather make it to dry land alive. So suppose we explain things to each other first. I liked your Captain asleep, but awake?' She peered up at me, searchingly. What do you mean?' I said, looking down at her.

  'I mean, you know half of what is happening, and half of why. I might know the rest. We can put it all together, and see if your master feels like being kind to his enemy's once, but now repentant, tart.' 'Go on,' I said. Well, Querini and the emperor. You go on.'

  'Very well. My best guess is that Querini – he's a banker, is he not? – holds the empire's notes, and that was his way in: suck Constantinople dry, and give the husk to the Republic. They'd certainly make him Doge for that.'

  'Oh, fuck. He's far more clever than that,' said Letice, shaking a finger. 'He helped the Regent mortgage himself away, but to other bankers – actually, to the Republic itself. He doesn't carry any of the risk.'

  'But then, what of the Crown?' I asked. You mean, he's just doing the Republic a favour? He's simply a patriot?'

  'Ha! It works! The scheme works!' she crowed. 'Querini the Selfless – the martyr, perhaps?'