The Vault of bones bp-2

by Pip Vaughan-Hughes

  This, I knew, was how Constantinople must have been before the Franks had destroyed her – destroyed her, and then built their own city in her image, for Saint Mark's, I saw, was a Greek church, and everywhere about me – on the church, on the walls of the buildings around the great square, on the columns that guarded the waterfront – were treasures that could only have come from the East. It was horrible to see, with the ruin of that other city so fresh in my mind; but Venice is a strange and terrible place, but also a lovely one, and when the sun shines, its warm stone and brick, the outlandish skill of its builders and artisans, and the gentle music of light and water, work a powerful conjuration upon the spirits. So I did not curse the Serenissima, but instead let myself fall under her enchantments.

  Enchanted or not, I knew better than to expect an audience today, but nevertheless I screwed up my nerves and walked through the open doors of the palace of the Doges. There were people everywhere in the hall beyond, milling about, gossiping and doing business, all dressed in peacock-bright silks of outlandish cut, their tunics in the main even shorter than my own. I looked in vain for someone who might be official, and at last I asked a guard if he could direct me to where I might arrange an audience with the council. He gave me a crooked look, as if marking me for a moon-struck fool, but pointed out an old man in the black robes of a cleric, who was standing near some grand stairs and nodding, polite and extremely bored, at the men who assailed him on all sides.

  I had to wait my turn, for it seemed everyone in Venice wanted an audience, and each one of them had to go through the bored old man. I finally planted myself in front of him, and gave a brisk bow.

  'Good sir, I seek an audience with the Council of the Republic. I have several very pressing matters of business, even of state, to discuss…'

  The man looked me up and down. He had a beaky nose, from which a great number of white hairs bristled, and watery blue eyes, yet even so he managed to look quite implacably important. ‘Your name?' he interrupted. ‘Petrus Zennorius, sir, from…' 'And your business is?'

  'Pertaining to Baldwin, Emperor of the Latins and of Constantinople’ I said, garbling the title. The man's glistening eyes blinked, and one shaggy eyebrow twitched. I believe he is in Venice, and I would speak to him and to the council on urgent matters of.. ‘

  'No doubt’ I thought I had hooked him, but now he was lost, already turning to another face in the surging crowd. What had I done wrong?

  I have papers’ I said desperately, groping in my tunic for them. The man rolled his eyes in horror, and turned to the man beside me, who launched into his own desperate patter.

  'But, sir!' I cried, but already I was being shouldered and elbowed backwards, and I saw it was useless. The guards were already looking my way, and so I stood up straight and marched out of the palace, looking, so I hoped, like a man who had got just what he had come for.

  I was out in the cold sunshine again, on the waterfront that the Venetians call the Molo, and it was such a fine sight that I lingered, admiring the ships that were docked there, as thickly as in the port of London, for this was the city's main wharf. There was a veritable wall of masts, and I walked slowly, reading the names painted upon the prows, wondering where they had been and where they would go next. But I felt exposed and nervous out here in the light, and turned back towards the domes of Saint Mark's. Crossing the canal next to the palace I stumbled a little and, with that reflex of embarrassment, glanced around me to make sure no one had noticed. Of course no one had: a man could disembowel himself in the middle of Saint Mark's Square and the Venetian throng would chatter around him, making certain, of course, not to bloody their clothes. But as I straightened up I glimpsed a man dressed in a brighter-than-usual yellow silk tunic stepping into the mouth of a nearby alley. A lovely yellow it was, like the necks of goldfinches or cowslips in spring. Still I thought no more about it, save to wonder whether – unbidden thought! – it might look fetching upon Letice.

  I walked on, forcing myself not to hurry. Little round white clouds drifted above me, seeming to wander through the thicket of masts. I doubted I would ever get used to the way the city hung between sky, sea and land, seemingly made from all three elements but belonging wholly to none. The way the marble on the palace facades seemed more spun than carved; the tall windows and columns that echoed both the masts of ships and the wavering shafts of light that danced wherever the sun met the water; the great cathedral, barbaric and glittering, a vast chest full of pillage upturned on the square.

  I strolled along past eel-sellers and touting boatmen, past whores and whoremongers, money-changers and cut-purses. A man was selling little grilled birds on wooden skewers – sandpipers or something of the like, to judge by the long, charred beaks – and because they smelled so good, and I had eaten nothing since last night's supper, I bought two sticks. As I handed over my money I caught a flash of yellow away to my right: that tunic again. I began to crunch my way up the first beak and as I bit into the head, the hot, unctuous brains bursting in my mouth made me sigh with pleasure and forget, once again, about tunics of yellow. I went on my way, munching and leaving a trail of small bones in my wake, and soon reached the twin columns that stood at the entrance to the square of grass known as the Piazzetta, which is the one place in all Venice where one may gamble, and where the executions are held. Gamblers had their tables set up between the bronze lion and the saint perched upon his crocodile, and the dice rattled out the tunes of marlota and triga and riffa as men cursed and coins glinted. There had been executions the day before, and the grass was rucked up and thick with dried blood and vomit, but the gamers did not notice or care as their shoes became stained darker and darker while they shuffled in joy or frustration.

  I walked on towards the campanile. There was a shout behind me and a clatter, and I looked back to see a table overturned and an angry man set upon by the table-owner's footpads, hidden in the crowd until needed, as always. And there, to one side of the strugglers: a man in a yellow tunic, who stepped quickly behind the pillar that held up the lion as if hiding from me. And he was hiding, I realised. He had seen me notice him, and clumsily dodged out of sight. Someone was following me.

  I was so surprised that I just stood there and took another bite of sandpiper. This is ridiculous, I thought. He'll peep out from behind that pillar in a moment. And so he did, like a child playing hide-and-seek with a younger boy who has not quite grasped the fundamentals of the game. But perhaps secrecy was not at stake here, and all he needed to do was get close enough to stick something sharp through my liver. I dropped the last sandpiper and dodged into the throng that filled Saint Mark's Square.

  I tried to seem nonchalant as I wove and barged my way through the back-ways of San Marco towards the bridge at the Riva Alta, following the river of Venetians through the Calle del Fabbri and then through the square in front of Saint Salvadore's Church. A gaggle of tarts were arguing on the bridge there and cursed me in their rasping slang as I shoved past. Then I found myself in the midst of a busy cloth market that had all but blocked the alleyway beyond. Finally I turned a corner and saw, at the far end of a small square, the two halves of the Quartarolo Bridge writhing like trapped snakes. A big, deep-water galley had just rowed through and churned up the water, and its wake slapped against the stone walls of the Grand Canal, each slap making more wavelets that rushed to the canal's middle, where they fought one another and the poor, soaked wretches who were stoically drawing the bridge together. The pontoons bucked and twitched, the ropes snapped, went slack and snapped again, and inch by turgid inch the flimsy wooden causeways approached each other, jumping and nervous, like two horses brought to stud.

  They were making a meal of it, the bridge-men. It would be minutes yet before anyone could cross safely. And the street behind me was filling up with Venetians, chattering and squawking at each other like a flock of gaudy starlings. I glanced back and saw that the square was bursting with a crowd anxious to cross over to San Polo and too idle or poor to pa
y for the ferry, which in any case was lurking on the far side, its boatman too lazy or spiteful to row through the waves. Then I saw the follower: a flash of cowslip silk at the corner of an old church.

  Frantically I pushed my way to the front of the crowd, past more quarrelsome tarts and some young rakes in garish striped hose. Another glance behind me: the follower was at the last corner before the street opened on to the waterfront and as I watched began to shove forward, not caring any longer if I noticed. In front of me the bridge-men had got their bucking pontoons under some degree of mastery and were heaving the two sides towards each other. Two yards of fretting green water separated them. I saw very clearly what I would do next, and it surprised me so much that my head had no time to argue with my legs. That was fortunate, as they had begun to sprint at full tilt over the flagstones and on to the heaving, slippery planks of the bridge. Suddenly I felt weightless as the wooden causeway yielded beneath me, banging with every footfall. I might as well be running on the waves themselves. The bridge-men's mouths were hanging open like empty feed-bags.

  'Keep pulling those fucking ropes,' I yelled in English. The bouncing of the planks was forcing my knees up into my chest as I ran and I knew I would fall if I slowed even a little. But I would have to plant my feet for the leap. The ropes were slack in the hands of the bridge-man, who was fighting to keep his balance, and as I crashed towards him he dropped them and grabbed at me. I saw his huge hands in front of my face and open water ahead and then suddenly, incredibly, I was in the air. The other bridge-man stepped aside and I was across, skipping like a stone along the twisting, rearing causeway. I had solid ground beneath my feet when I staggered to a halt and turned to see one bridge-man in the canal, his mate heaving him towards the planks, and a cheering, jeering crowd on the other side. The two halves of the bridge were drifting apart once more. And there, fists on hips at the edge of the water, a slight young man in a wondrously shimmering tunic of yellow Venetian silk.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  For a moment I felt as light-hearted as a child who has scored some little victory over a rival. I wanted nothing more than to taunt my follower, but crushed that urge and instead slipped into the nearest side street. I was beginning to get the hang of the city, and allowed myself to become half-lost, all the while heading roughly northwards, checking at every corner for any sign of pursuit. But there was none, and soon I began searching for the Campo San Cassiano, which was not too hard, for I followed the most furtive-looking men, and soon I was back in the square of brothels, where the tarts were still touting their wares, and the men were still gazing aloft, rapt, as if God and his angels were descending from the heavens.

  The hunchback let me in to The Trapped Eel, and I hurried upstairs to find Letice. ‘I’ve been followed’ I told her breathlessly. 'Here?' Her voice was sharp.

  'No, no.' I told her what had happened, and how foolish my pursuer had looked, stranded on the wrong side of the canal.

  'Describe him’ she demanded. I did, as much as I could: blond, fresh-faced, a dandy.

  'Sounds like Righi’ she said, scowling. 'One of the Querini bravoes. You were marked, all right. And they did not follow you here? You are sure?'

  I was, for I had been taught well in such villains' crafts these last few years. 'He was making it bloody obvious’ I added.

  Well, he is not the cleverest of God's creations’ said Letice. 'But even so…'

  She was interrupted by a clamour from downstairs, men's voices raised in anger, and women's shrieks. Letice rubbed her cheeks in vexation. 'This bloody place’ she muttered. What is it?'

  'Drunken men in too much of a hurry to get their eels trapped’ said the girl wryly. 'It is always so. Do not worry. Luchas the Hunchback will see to them – beat their brains out, most likely. Christ, I hope we do not have to stay here long.'

  But the noise did not abate. It grew in ferocity, until I opened the door and stuck my head out on to the landing. We were four flights up, but I could hear doors being hammered upon, and outraged cries from disturbed revellers.

  'Something's wrong’ I said. 'Quick – is there another way out?' Letice shook her head. I could see a blue vein darken in her temple, so pale had she become.

  'One staircase. The roof – too far to leap to the next building.'

  I looked out of the window. It was a long drop into a narrow canal, and who knew how deep it might be? No escape there.

  We'll have to go down’ I told her. 'Perhaps they won't recognise us. Because it must be Querini's men, mustn't it? Quick – tie up your hair, and… and put these on.' I picked up my travelling clothes from the floor and flung them on to the bed. She looked at me for an instant, about to speak, and then in one motion she turned her back on me and pulled her robe up over her shoulders. I caught no more than a glimpse of her long back, as white and supple as cream poured out from a ewer, before I wrenched my head away. When I turned back, she was draped in the ugly, salt-stained things of black fustian, busily stuffing her tresses into my dark coif. But such thoughts I had had meanwhile, thoughts I could not keep away, that had swarmed and bitten like midges, a thousand tiny ghosts that were the shards of one shattered spirit. How I loathed this room.

  Take this’ I said, unhooking Thorn from my belt and holding out the hilt to her. She reached for it, and stopped. ‘You take it’ she said.

  'No. You. I am… I'm stronger than you. The knife will make us equal’ She bit her lower lip, and grasped the green stone of the hilt. Our eyes met, and, like the first pangs of sickness or the hidden stab of joy when the hidden meaning of a thing reveals itself, I felt as I had those many months ago, when she had looked up at me from the floor of Baldwin's chambers in Rome. The curve of her long lip, the perfect sculpture of her nose… all at once, the tormenting ghosts were gone, and I was alone with Letice in an empty room, just a room where people had lived, fucked and died, a room like every other in the world. ‘I am ready’ I told her. 'Are you?'

  She nodded once, briskly, and, holding the knife by the scabbard, tucked it up under her left sleeve and curled her fingers over the hilt so that it was hidden. I looked around the room, spied the big, crude chamber-pot and snatched it 'Right then’ I said, and opened the door.

  There was pandemonium going on below us, and I led the way down towards it, fast, taking the stairs two at a time. The first landing was empty, and I did not pause, but grabbed the banister and leaped down the next flight. There was a man coming up towards us, red-faced, holding a club of bog-oak. He had time to look shocked before my foot caught him under the chin and he fell backwards, arms out, into space, and then into the wall at the bend in the stairwell. He lay still, head crooked. I picked up the club in my free hand, for the man was insensible or dead, and kept moving. I could hear Letice behind me, the stiff cloth of her clothes rustling but no words, no sound from her lips. Around the next corner another man was puffing up the stairs, but he was stark naked and red as a robin's breast, and so we pushed him aside and kept going down.

  I could hear a loud female voice. It was high, but as tightly controlled as the others were panicked. 'By what right?' it said. 'By whose authority?' Mother Zaneta, apparently, was having none of it. There was a piercing yelp beside me. Through an open door, I saw a big man with a scratched face pinning a young whore against the wall by her throat. He was fumbling somewhere between them: going either for his knife or his cock. I took two strides across the room and slammed the club across the back of his head. He buckled, his face smearing blood down the girl's breasts as he fell.

  'Don't waste time!' hissed Letice. I grimaced: she was right. We abandoned the girl, who was picking her tormentor's purse, and charged down the next flight of stairs. No one there, and the doors were either shut tight or open to reveal empty rooms. There was a peal of cursing and then barked orders from below – the ground floor. We had come to it. I paused and looked at Letice. She shrugged and bared her teeth in a desperate grin. Her face was flushed, the darker red that lies at the centre
of a pink rose, and she shook back her sleeve and jerked Thorn free of her scabbard. A laugh that was not fuelled by joy rose like a bubble in my chest. I switched the chamber-pot to my right hand and shrugged helplessly, grinning myself, feeling the fingers of madness upon my face. With Letice at my back I hurled myself down the stairs. We turned the corner together, and ran straight into the young man in yellow. His hands were empty, and he took one look at Thorn and fled with a clatter, with me treading upon his heels. We reached the downstairs hall together. I had time to see Facio, sword drawn and laid casually across his shoulder, and another man; and Mother Zaneta, who was staring them down like some ancient martyr facing the pliers and the saw.

  Then the boy, in his panic, pitched headlong into the man next to Facio, who fended him off with an indignant shout and sent him flying into the old woman. The two of them fell in a tangle, and a cacophony of shrieks and laments rang out, for now I saw that beyond Facio a huddle of girls clung to each other, shaking and whimpering in fear. Facio had whipped around and I found myself surging towards the gently wavering point of his blade. I had no time to stop, but reflexively put up my right hand to cover my breast, and the gaping mouth of the chamber-pot swallowed the sword point. The sword was stout but the pot was stouter, and did not break; but its heavy bottom banged into my chest and stopped me short. Facio drew back his blade to strike again and without thinking I hurled the pot at him. He got his hand up and the pot glanced off his knuckles and smashed into the side of his face. He staggered and, awkwardly, wildly, I swung the club with my left hand and bludgeoned him on the ear. He went down awkwardly and I sprang forward and stamped with all my weight upon his crotch. The other man had meanwhile tugged out a hideous short sword, more a cleaver than a sword, and was raising it to chop me down when there was a flash of quicksilver beside me and the man's arm opened to the bone -I glimpsed its blood-netted yellow – and he dropped the cleaver with a scream.