Now the bigger houses were built directly onto the canal, some of them with great front doors that opened straight onto the water, some of them had a gate at the front of the house to allow a boat to float directly into the house as if the river were a welcome guest.
As Isolde watched, one of these water doors opened and a gondola came out, sleek as a black fish, with the brightly dressed gondolier standing in the stern and rowing with his single oar as the gentleman sat in the middle of the boat, a black cape around his shoulders and an embroidered hat on his head, his face hidden by a beautifully decorated mask which revealed only his smiling mouth.
‘Oh! Look!’ she exclaimed. ‘What a beautiful little boat, and see how it came out of the house?’
‘Called a gondola,’ the boatman explained. ‘The Venetians have them like land dwellers have a litter or a cart to get about. Every big house has a watergate so that their gondola can come and go.’
Isolde could not take her eyes from the beautiful craft, and the gentleman nodded his head and raised a gloved hand to her as he swept by.
‘Carnival,’ Brother Peter said quietly as he saw the magnificently coloured waistcoat under the gentleman’s dark cape and the brilliantly coloured mask that covered his face. ‘We could not have come to the city at a worse time.’
‘What’s so bad about the carnival?’ Ishraq asked curiously, looking after the black gondola and the handsome masked man.
‘It is twenty days of indulgence and sin before Lent,’ Brother Peter replied. ‘Carnevale as they call it, is a byword for the worst behaviour. If we were enquiring into sin we would have nothing to do but to point at every passer-by. The city is famous for vice. We will have to stay indoors as much as possible, and avoid the endless drinking and promenading and dancing. And worse.’
‘But what a grand house!’ Isolde exclaimed. ‘Like a palace! Did you see inside? The stone stairs coming down to his own private quay? And the torches inside the building?’
‘Look!’ Ishraq pointed ahead of them. There were more houses directly on the water’s edge, most of them standing on little islands completely surrounded by water, the islands connected with thin, arching wooden bridges. On the left side the travellers could see the spires of churches beyond the waterfront houses, and at every second or third house they could see a narrow dark canal winding its way deeper into the heart of the city, and smaller canals branching from it, each one crowded with gondolas and working boats, every quay busy with people, half of them dressed in fantastic costumes, the women tottering on impossibly high shoes, some of them so tall that they had a maidservant to walk beside them for support.
‘What are they wearing on their feet? They’re like stilts!’ Ishraq exclaimed.
‘They are called chopines,’ Brother Peter said. ‘They keep the ladies’ gowns and feet clear of the water when the streets are flooded.’ He looked consideringly at the women, who could not stand unsupported but looked magnificent, tall as giantesses, in their beautiful billowing long gowns. ‘The Holy Church approves of them,’ he said.
‘I would have thought you would have called them a ridiculous vanity?’ Ishraq asked curiously.
‘Since they prevent dancing, and women cannot walk about on their own while wearing them, they are a great discouragement to sin,’ Brother Peter replied. ‘That’s a great advantage.’
‘It is as everyone said, the city is built on the water,’ Isolde said wonderingly. ‘The houses stand side by side like boats moored closely in a port.’
‘I’ve never seen anything like it. How will the horses get about?’ Freize asked.
‘The boatman will take them a little out of the city, after he has set us down,’ Brother Peter told him. ‘When we need them, we’ll take a boat to get to them. There are no horses in Venice, everyone goes everywhere by boat.’
‘The goods for market?’ Freize asked.
‘Come in by boat and are loaded and unloaded at the quayside.’
‘The inns?’
‘Take travellers who leave and arrive by boat. They have no stable yards.’
‘The priests who attend the churches?’
‘Come and go by boat. Every church has its own stone quayside.’
‘Aha, and so how do they get the stone for building?’ Freize demanded, as if he was finally about to catch Brother Peter in a travellers’ tale.
‘They have great barges that bring in the stone,’ Brother Peter replied. ‘Everything comes by boat, I tell you. They even have great barges that bring in the drinking water.’
This was too much for Freize. ‘Now I know you are deceiving me,’ he said. ‘The one thing this city does not lack is water! They must be born with webbed feet, these Venetians.’
‘They are a strange and unique people,’ Brother Peter conceded. ‘They govern themselves without a king, they have no roads, no highways, they are the wealthiest city in Christendom, they live on the sea and by the sea. They are expanding constantly, and their only god is trade; but they have built the most beautiful churches on every canal and decorated them with the most inspiring holy pictures. Every church is a treasure house of sacred art. Yet they act as if they are as far from God as they are from the mainland and there is no way to get to Him but a voyage.’
Now they were approaching the heart of the city. The broad canal was walled on either side with white Istrian stone to make a continuous quay, occasionally pierced by a tributary canal winding deeper inside the city. Many of the smaller inner canals were crossed by little wooden bridges, a few were crossed by steeply stepped bridges of white stone. The ferry was losing the cold breeze and so the boatman took down the sails and set to row; he took an oar on one side, and his lad heaved on the other. They wound their way through the constant river traffic of gondolas going swiftly through the water with loud warning cries from the gondoliers in the sterns of ‘Gondola! Gondola! Gondola!’
The canal was crowded with fishing ships, the flat-bottomed barges for carrying heavy goods, the ferry boats heaving with poorer people, and criss-crossing through the traffic going from one side to the other were public gondolas for hire. To the two young women who had been raised in a small country castle, it was impossibly busy and glamorous, they looked from right to left and could not believe what they were seeing. Every gondola carried passengers, heavily cloaked with their faces hidden by carnival masks. The women wore masks adorned with dyed plumes of feathers, the eyeholes slit like the eyes of a cat, a brightly coloured hood covering their hair, a bejewelled fan hiding their smiling lips. Even more intriguing were the gondolas where the little cabin in the middle of the slim ship had the doors resolutely shut on hidden lovers, and the gondolier was rowing slowly, impassive in the stern. Sometimes a second gondola followed the first with musicians playing lingering love songs, for the entertainment of the secret couple.
‘Sin, everywhere,’ Brother Peter said, averting his gaze.
‘There’s only one bridge across the Grand Canal,’ the boatman told them. ‘Everywhere else you have to take a boat to cross. It’s a good city to be a ferryman. And this is it, the only bridge: the Rialto.’
It was a high wooden bridge, many feet above the canal, arching up so steeply that even masted ships could pass easily beneath it, rising up from both sides of the canal almost like a pinnacle, crowded with people, laden with little stalls and shops. There was a constant stream of pedestrians walking up the stairs on one side and down the other, pausing to shop, stopping to buy, leaning on the high parapet to watch the ships go underneath, arguing the prices, changing their money. The whole bridge was a shimmer of colour and noise.
The square of San Giacomo, just beside the bridge, was just as busy, lined with the tall houses of the merchants. All the nations of Christendom, and many of the infidel, were shown by their own flag and the national costume of the men doing business at the windows and doorway. Next to them stood the great houses of the Venetian banking families, the front doors standing open for business, absurdly costumed peo
ple coming and going, trading and buying in all seriousness, though dressed as if they were strolling players, with great plumed hats on their heads and bright jewelled masks on their faces.
In the square itself the bankers and gold merchants had their tables laid out all around the colonnade, one to every arch, and were trading in coin, promises and precious metals. When money was changing hands the masks were laid aside, as each client wanted to look his banker in the eye. Among them were Ottoman traders, their brightly coloured turbans and gorgeous robes as beautiful as any costume. Venice had all but captured the trade of the Ottoman Empire and the wealth of the East flowed into Europe across the Venice traders’ tables. There was no other route to the East, there was no easy navigable way to Russia. Venice was at the very centre of world trade and the riches of east and west, north and south poured into it from every side.
‘The Rialto,’ Luca reminded Freize. ‘This is where that infidel, Radu Bey, said that there was a priest, Father Pietro, who ransoms Christian slaves from the galleys of the Ottomans. This is it, this is the bridge, this is where he said. Perhaps Father Pietro is here now, perhaps I will be able to ransom my father and mother.’
‘We’ll come out as soon as we are settled in our house,’ Freize promised him. ‘But Sparrow, you will remember that the Ottoman gentleman, Radu Bey, seems to be the sworn enemy of the lord who commands your Order, and neither he nor t’other inspire me with trust.’
Luca laughed. ‘I know. You do right to warn me. But Freize, you know I would take advice from the Devil himself if I thought I could get my father and mother back home. Just to see them again! Just to know they were alive.’
Freize put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘And they will have missed you too – they have missed your growing up and they loved you so dearly. If we can find them and buy them out of slavery it will be a great thing. I am just saying – don’t get your hopes up too high. They were captured by the Ottoman slavers and it was an Ottoman general who told us that we might buy them back. Just because he was well-read and spoke fair to you does not make him a friend.’
‘Ishraq liked him too, and she’s a good judge of character,’ Luca objected.
A shadow crossed Freize’s honest face. ‘Ishraq liked him better than she liked the lord of your Order,’ he told Luca. ‘I wouldn’t trust her judgement with the foreign lord myself. I don’t know what game he was playing with her when he spoke to her in Arabic that only she could understand. Come to that, I don’t know what game she was playing when she swore to me that he said nothing.’
‘And here is your palazzo,’ the boatman remarked. ‘Ca’ de Longhi, just west of the Piazza San Marco, very nice.’
‘A palace?’ Isolde exclaimed. ‘We have hired a palace?’
‘All the grand houses on the canal are palaces, though they are all called Casa – only the Doge’s house is called a palace,’ the boatman explained. ‘And the reason for that, is that they are each and every one of them, the most beautiful palaces ever built in the world.’
‘And do princes live here?’ Ishraq asked. ‘In all these palaces?’
‘Better than princes,’ he smiled at her. ‘Richer than princes, and greater than kings. The merchants of Venice live here and you will find no greater power in this city or in all of Italy!’
He steered towards the little quayside at the side of the house, leaned hard on the rudder and brought the boat alongside with a gentle bump. He looked up at the beautiful frescoes on either side of the great water door, and all around the house, and then at Luca with a new level of respect. ‘You are welcome, Your Grace,’ he said, suddenly adjusting his view of the handsome young merchant who must surely command the fortune of a prince if he could afford such a palace to rent.
Freize saw the calculating look and nudged the boatman gently. ‘We’ll pay double for the trouble and danger,’ he said shortly. ‘And you’ll oblige us by keeping the story of the galley to yourself.’
‘Of course, sir,’ the boatman said, accepting a heavy purse of coins. He jumped nimbly onto the broad steps, tied the boat fore and aft and put out his hand to help the ladies on shore.
Glancing at each other, very conscious that they were playing a part, Ishraq and Isolde, Luca and Brother Peter stepped onto the stone pavement before their house. The door for pedestrians was at the side of the house, overlooking the smaller tributary canal. It stood open and the housekeeper bobbed a curtsey and led the way into the cool shaded hall.
First, as always, before they did anything else, Brother Peter, Luca and Isolde had to go to church and give thanks for their safe arrival. Ishraq and Freize, as an infidel and a servant, were excused.
‘Go to the Rialto,’ Luca ordered Freize. ‘See if they have heard of Father Pietro. I will come myself to speak with him later.’
Luca, Brother Peter and Isolde, with her hood pulled modestly forward, left the house by the little door onto the paved way beside the narrow canal and turned to their right to walk through the narrow alley to the Piazza San Marco where the great church bells echoed out, ringing for Terce, sending the pigeons soaring up into the cold blue sky, and the gorgeously costumed Venetians posed and paraded up to the very doors of the church itself.
Ishraq and Freize closed the side door on their companions and stood for a moment in the quiet hall.
‘May I show you the rooms?’ the housekeeper asked them, and led them up the wide flight of marble stairs to the first floor of the building where a large reception room overlooked the canal with huge double-height windows leading to a little balcony. The grand room was warm, a small fire burned in the grate and the sunshine poured in through the window. Leading off were three smaller rooms.
The housekeeper led them up again to the same layout of rooms on the upper floor. ‘We’ll take the top floor,’ Ishraq said. ‘You can have the first.’
‘And above you are the kitchens and the servants’ rooms,’ the housekeeper said, gesturing to the smaller stairs that went on up.
‘Kitchens in the attic?’ Freize asked.
‘To keep the house safe in case of fire,’ she said. ‘We Venetians are so afraid of fire, and we have no space to put the kitchens at a distance from the house on the ground floor. All the space on the ground floor is the courtyard and the garden, and at the front of the house the quay and the watergate.’
‘And are you the cook?’ Freize asked, thinking that he would be glad of a good lunch when the others came back from church.
She nodded.
‘We’ll go and run our errands and perhaps return to a large lunch?’ Freize hinted. ‘For we had a long cold night with nothing but some bread and a few eggs, and I, for one, would be glad to try the Venice specialities and your cooking.’
She smiled. ‘I shall have it ready for you. Will you take the gondola?’
Freize and Ishraq exchanged a delighted grin. ‘Can we?’ Ishraq asked.
‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘It’s the only way to get around this city.’ She led the way down the marble stairs to the ground floor, to the waterside front of the house, and their own private quay, where their gondola rocked at its moorings. The housekeeper waved them down the final flight of stairs and indicated the manservant who came out of a doorway, wiping his mouth and pulling on his bright feathered cap.
‘Giuseppe,’ she said by way of introduction. ‘He will take you wherever you want to go, and wait and bring you home.’
The man pulled the boat close to the quay, and held out his hand to help Ishraq aboard. Freize stepped heavily after her and Ishraq cried out and then laughed as the boat rocked.
‘This is going to take some getting used to,’ Freize said. ‘I am missing Rufino already; how ever will he manage without me?’ He turned to the gondolier, Giuseppe. ‘Can you take us to the Rialto?’
‘Of course,’ the boatman said and loosened the tasselled tie that held the gondola prow against the wall of the house. He stepped onto the platform in the stern and with
one skilful push of the single oar thrust them out of the house and into the teeming water traffic of the Grand Canal.
Freize and Ishraq sat in the middle of the boat and looked around, as their boat nosed through the crowded canal. Hucksters and merchants were on little ships, coming close to every craft and offering their wares, wherries and rowing boats for hire were threading their way through the traffic, great barges carrying beams and stone took the centre of the canal and rowed to the beat of the drum. Freize and Ishraq, the fair, square-faced young man and the brown-skinned, dark-haired girl in their expensive private gondola, drew glances as the gondolier drew up at the Rialto Bridge with a flourish, leaped ashore, and offered his hand to Ishraq.
She drew her hood over her head and her veil across her face as she stepped on the shore. She noticed that there were serving women, and working women, beggars and store keepers, and women in gaudy yellow with heavily painted faces, tottering along on absurdly tall shoes; but there were no gentlewomen or noblewomen on the wide stone square before the bridge, and at all the windows of the trading houses there were severe-looking men in dark suits who seemed to disapprove of a young woman in the square among the businessmen.
‘Where d’you think Father Pietro might be?’ Freize asked, staring around him.
The square was so filled with people, so noisy and so bustling, that Ishraq could only shake her head in wonderment. Someone was charming a snake for a handful of onlookers, the basket rocking from one side to another as he played his pipe, the straw lid starting to lift, only a dark eye showing, and a questing forked tongue. A row of merchants had their table under the shelter of the broad colonnade, and were changing money from one foreign currency to another, the beads on the abacus rattling like castanets as the men calculated the value. Beside the river, a belated fisherman was landing his catch and selling it fresh to a couple of servants. The huge fish market had opened at dawn and sold out a few hours later. There was a constant swirl of men coming and going from the great trading houses which surrounded the square on all sides. Errand boys with baskets on their heads and on their arms dashed about their business, shoppers crowded the little stores on either side of the high Rialto Bridge, traders shouted their wares from the rocking boats at the quayside; every nationality was there, buying, selling, arguing, making money, from the dark-suited German bankers to the gloriously robed traders from the Ottoman Empire, and even beyond.
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