by Alex Connor
She cried again, walking on, and I ran after her. I cajoled her, begged her to forgive me. Knew that she had not slept with Baptista – just as I knew people would believe she had. I touched her arm and she brushed me away and walked on faster over a bridge. We passed many people and saw the Dutchman, Barent der Witt, and moments later she entered the Basilica di Santa Maris Gloriosa dei Frari. Together we took Mass and I prayed under Titian’s swooping Assumption that we could be close again.
I missed her even then.
And knew, too late
I could have loved her.
But we were no longer engaged in one of Aretino’s puppet shows; and I was no longer at the end of his string. We turned to each other for comfort. I, in my guilt, she, in her shame. When she cried, I held her to me and rocked her. I don’t understand how, I had never been rocked as a child. But we were both lost children. The lost cling to each other and we did.
And so I betrayed her twice. Once with Baptista and secondly by my own actions. Afterwards we drew back from each other after that one helpless and desperate coming together; we parted without either of us explaining, but mutually letting go.
And then I ran.
Yes, that is how it was...
What I expected to happen afterwards I do not know.
It was months later when I finally turned myself homeward to Venice.
And The Wolves were waiting for me.
Chapter Thirty Five
“Ah, Signor Tintoretto, Il Furioso,” Lavinia said by way of greeting. “Please come in and sit by the fire, this is most dreadful weather. Such damp I have not known for many years and there is nothing to lessen it. Or maybe that is merely my old bones.” She watched as the painter took a seat, his curly hair long at the nape of his neck, his beard trimmed unevenly. So unlike the elegant Titian, Lavinia thought, and so much more likeable. “I would like to commission you for a portrait.”
He smiled. “For yourself, Contessa?”
“No, no, I have too many portraits of myself! Titian painted the last one, he made me look like an old nanny goat.”
“You are very cruel —” he teased her.
“No, no, he was the one who was cruel!” she replied, laughing, amused by his teasing. “No, this time I would to commission a portrait of my grandson, Marco.” She tilted her head to one side. “Have you heard from him?”
Tintoretto shook his head.
“Sadly no, Contessa. And as he is no longer my apprentice, naturally your son’s generous payment for his tutoring will cease —”
She tapped the floor with her stick irritably.
“Do not be foolish! All artists are poor, unless they are Titian, who is as rich as four kings. How such a genius can have a confidante like Aretino, I will never understand. No, no you must keep the money and keep working. You have such talent and Titian needs a rival. Your painting of Esther before Ahasuerus is magnificent. I believe you wish to combine the drawing of Michelangelo with the colouring of Titian. Is that not what the esteemed Paolo Pino claimed?”
Tintoretto flushed. “I have the quote upon my studio wall, Contessa. ‘Il disegno di Michelangelo ed il colorito di Titian.’”
“And you have succeeded, the four paintings for Scuola di St Marco are remarkable.”
He inclined his head, always uncertain how to react to flattery. “You are most kind —”
“A moment ago I was cruel!” she replied, laughing again, Tintoretto relaxing. “Tell me something…” she leaned towards him, the stiff black bodice of her gown pressed against the white, paper-thin skin. “Is it true that you make little wax figures?”
“Sometime they are clay.”
“And you place them in boxes to make your compositions?”
He nodded. “Yes, it’s true.”
“So that great swooping angel of yours began as just a little clay figure on the end of a piece of string?”
Tintoretto smiled. “It is strange you should mention that, Contessa. Marco had just begun his apprenticeship when I made that angel. I remember that he was also fascinated by it and by the tableaux I was working on…He was so light hearted then, happy to run errands like a grocer’s boy, coming back laden with wooden boxes from the quayside.”
“You miss him.”
“Yes.” Tintoretto agreed. “As must you, Contessa.”
“Not so much.” She admitted. “I am a frigid, unfeeling woman, with little affection in me. Which is why my son was a cold man and neither of us were as interested in Marco as we should have been. We neglected him.”
“Neglect is a brutal word.”
“But an honest one. You must understand something, my son detested Marco because he held him responsible for his mother’s suicide. Which is absurd, but the mind is not logical, much like the emotions. The woman was pazza. She was unstable.” Her honesty surprised him as she continued. “You looked shocked by my bluntness, signor, of course you are. Why, you are thinking, does this grim harpy confide in me? Why does she talk of an old scandal, why confess to such an unforgivable lack of love for her grandson?”
Tintoretto was unable to think of a suitable response. “Contessa I am in no position—”
“Hear me out, please. I am not losing my mind, Tintoretto, if that is what you suspect. My body is falling to pieces, but my brain is fresh, surprisingly so. Which is why I asked you to come here. Yes, I do want to commission a portrait of my grandson from you, that it true, but I also need an ally.”
“An ally?”
She tapped the floor with her shoe. It reminded Tintoretto of a bejewelled black beetle scuttling out from under the skirt of her mourning dress, the jet beads blinking like scales.
“I have no time for games, signor! My son is dead and the Gianetti inheritance is set to go to fools unless I secure it with the rightful heir. Who, as all of Venice knows, is at present missing. Please, if you would be so kind, tell me why my grandson left Venice.”
He hesitated and she urged him to continue.
“Has it something to do with that reprobate, Aretino?” she tapped her stick on the floor again. “Come, come, we must trust each other! I put no duty on you, signor. I request nothing that will be against your principals or empty your coffers. I ask only for your honesty.”
“Honesty is often dangerous –”
“Forget how I look, forget I am very old! I am also very strong.” she snapped, “Whatever you say I will not die from shock, believe me. Too much has happened in my life for me to succumb until I have completed what needs to be done. Was Aretino blackmailing my grandson?”
Tintoretto stared at her, dumbfounded. “I do not know.”
“The fat oaf was blackmailing my son,” Lavinia confided. “I do not know what hold he had over Jacopo, but my son championed his career at court and with the Doges personally. He hated Aretino, and yet he endured him. He would visit the palazzo and Jacopo would feed him – the finest food always, delicacies that the gross pig feasted on – and my son would watch him with such loathing. I never knew what the control was, only that there had to be one. Perhaps Jacopo had cheated Aretino over property, or business? He was a greedy man, a great lover of money, acquisitive, always desiring more and more, but never fulfilled.”
“I do not believe that I can help you, Contessa. Marco did not confide in me.”
She frowned, leaning on the arm of her seat, her chin cupped in hand. “Maybe Aretino pricked my son’s conscience over his wife’s death.” Her gaze fixed on the artist, “In case you are wondering, it was not murder, signor, but I know that Aretino would imply that Jacopo’s behaviour was the cause of his wife’s misery. Maybe he was right... Unfortunately my son’s second wife died only a few years after they married. That was not murder either, she died of a chill. The weather was much like this and she was very delicate.”
“You do not have to tell me these things, Contessa –”
“It is a relief to speak of them.” she said honesty. “Secrets did not grow lighter with age, they weigh heavie
r and heavier until they force you into the grave beneath them.” She hurried on, “I suspect that Aretino’s interest in my grandson was to provoke Jacopo and add extra pressure, but, as I say, I cannot prove any of this.”
Tintoretto stared at the old woman, wondering how much she really wanted the truth and what affect the revelation would have on her. To confide would be to destroy the image of her grandson, to transform him from a neglected boy into a cowardly man. And when she did know the truth, he wondered, would she still think Marco the rightful heir to the Gianetti fortune?
Because he didn’t.
“The doctor who attended your son is Ira Tabat.”
“Yes, yes, I know.”
“Ira has a sister, Rosella, who works in the ghetto but also sits to me as a model.” He smiled wistfully. “She and Marco were like brother and sister, always playing tricks on me, but when Aretino took Marco as his protégé your grandson changed, fell completely under the writer’s thumb, impressed by his coterie and his way of life.”
“His whores?”
“Yes,” Tintoretto agreed. “Soon Marco’s apprenticeship meant nothing to him. He would go missing for days. Although we all warned him of his association with Aretino, he was blinded, bewitched by him. He would do whatever the writer wanted and made him into a god.”
Lavinia was listening intently, a pulse beating at her right temple. “Please, continue.”
“You have heard of a man called Adamo Baptista?...”
She nodded. “Who has not? I believe he is dangerous and disreputable.”
“... Marco would walk Rosella home before the curfew. As time passed, she didn’t need a chaperone. But one night there had been fighting in the streets and Marco insisted that she was accompanied home.” Tintoretto paused. “But he said he was busy and could not accompany her. So he had arranged for someone else to take her home—”
The old woman’s eyes widened. “No.”
“Sadly, yes.”
“Baptista? My grandson arranged for that dark hearted man to act as chaperone?” she asked, shaken.
He nodded. “Of course Aretino was testing Marco, seeing where his loyalties lay. Would he endanger Rosella’s reputation for him? Betray friendship for obsession?”
“And he did?”
“Yes... So Adamo Baptista walked Rosella home and people saw them and they talked. We all know how the city works. Reputation is everything for a woman, and she lost hers then.”
“I cannot believe that Marco would do this!” Lavinia snapped. “It’s so callous. So cowardly. I would never have thought it of him, Marco was always caring, always pleasing people. He was the only one of us who was kind,” she said regretfully. “I can hardly believe it —”
“He had a good teacher. Aretino is a dangerous puppet master who plays with peoples’ lives.” Tintoretto paused, looked at his hands and at the fingers stained with paint, his thumbnail bruised. “Rosella is now carrying a child.”
Lavinia leaned back in her chair, her face waxen. “She is pregnant with Adamo Baptista’s child?”
Tintoretto shook his head regretfully. “No, Contessa,” he said at last. “the baby is your grandson’s.”
*
Fidgeting in his seat, Aretino nodded graciously to the Doge’s wife and then turned his attention back to the stage. The performers were acting out a new play along the lines of the Commedia del’Arte, but casting contemporary Venetians in the famous roles. It did not escape the writer that this new, hooked nosed, barrel gutted Pucchinello was based on him. How amusing, Aretino thought, making a mental note of the author as he applauded his apparent approval.
The chair beside him was abruptly taken, Adamo Baptista’s bass voice low, but audible under the soprano’s sweeping aria.
“I have some news that may interest you.”
“News about Marco Gianetti’s whereabouts?”
“No, news about Barent der Witt.”
Aretino turned his feral eyes on Baptista. “What about the Dutchman?”
“His daughter died in mysterious circumstances, after which he left The Hague.”
“What kind of mysterious circumstances?”
“She drowned.”
“Hardly surprising...” Aretino said, applauding again and smiling at the Doge on the other side of the theatre. “...The Hague is full of fucking canals, what do you expect?”
“But a sixteen year old girl drowning in a canal is not usually disfigured.”
Aretino turned his head to look at his companion. “Disfigured? How?”
“She was found without her limbs and her face slashed.”
“Just like —”
“Yes. Marina Castilano’s maid, Gabriella Russo.” Baptista interrupted. “You remember Gabriella, don’t you?”
“Don’t be a turd, Adamo… When did this happen?”
“Four years ago.”
“And was Barent der Witt suspected of being his daughter’s killer?”
Baptista glanced at the stage, his gaze fixing on the Pucchinello figure. “You are being immortalised…” he said, amused. “…have you noticed how similar that actor’s appearance is to yours?”
Aretino ignored the bait.
“You didn’t answer my question, was the Dutchman suspected of his daughter’s murder?”
“He was when he left The Hague.”
Aretino considered the information. “But not before he left?”
“No, there had been no ill feeling, no trouble. There were just the two of them, Barent der Witt and his daughter. I think the authorities only suspected the apothecary when he left the country.”
“How clever you are, finding out all this information.” Aretino looked around the audience, craning his thick neck. “But where is your little friend, the luscious Volt? You should have brought him to the performance, he would have enjoyed it, I fancy the lad would do well following a theatrical career.”
“He has no interest in the theatre.”
“Do confide, what are his interests?”
“He listens. As I do.”
“A spy in the making, you would do well to teach him all the tricks, Baptista, spies are in great demand in Venice.”
“As they are in all great cities,” Baptista replied deftly, Aretino’s attention diverted back to their earlier conversation.
“Tell me, did the Netherland authorities continue to look for the girl’s murderer after der Witt had left?”
“For a while, but it was soon forgotten. The family was not rich and had no power and the authorities let the matter drop. But then I discovered something else.…” Baptista paused, the scene had ended and the audience was applauding vigorously, the opulent rococo ceiling of the theatre echoing with the sound, Baptista waiting for the noise to subside. When it finally did, he continued. “…another girl had been found in similar circumstances four months earlier in Paris…”
Aretino was listening avidly.
“... And at that time the Dutchman was in France. Although only for a short while before he moved on to Rome.”
“Quite the traveller,” Aretino commented. “but abortionists and quacks do have a varied and disparate clientele and tend to move from city to city.” He gave Baptista a sidelong glance. “So our apothecary was in Paris when another girl was murdered?”
“It’s possible, but my investigations suggest that he could have just left —”
“So it’s not definitive either way?”
Baptista shook his head. “No one was looking for der Witt, so the people I talked to weren’t emphatic about the dates.”
“This is intriguing,” Aretino continued. “So it’s possible der Witt killed the girl in Paris? Murdered her in the same way as his daughter and Gabriella Russo. Most fascinating. But then again, it is of little interest to me at the moment, my mind is elsewhere. I asked you to find the whereabouts of Marco Gianetti.”
“I have nothing to report yet.”
“This is rather sad... Are you losing your considerable sk
ill?”
“No more than you are losing yours,” Baptista replied, “I do know that the Contessa has sent people to find her grandson. Without success.”
Aretino stretched his legs out in front of him, his feet swollen, his ankles bulging over the edges of their embroidered velvet slippers.
“The old woman can’t inherit the Gianetti fortune,” he said. “and she won’t want it to go to any of the fucking imbecile cousins - which it will do if Marco doesn’t return to Venice and claim it. Of course, if he never returns the Republic could declare him dead.”
“Perhaps he is dead.”
“No, just hiding.” Aretino shook his head. “And even though he knows that the insufferable Tabat will be waiting for him, Marco will return. Either to assuage his conscience or inherit.” His gaze rested on Baptista. “I do wonder why Ira Tabat never went after you. Certainly it was Marco who set the play in motion, but you were the one who fucked his sister.”
Baptista ignored the comment and continued with his previous thought. “Of course if any of the cousins do inherit the Gianetti fortune you won’t get any of the money. You have no power over them: they are all God fearing and dull to a man. Jacopo was your fatted calf, Aretino, with his death and Marco’s disappearance your lucrative association with the family is over.” He stood up to leave, then bent down to Aretino, his voice lowered. “You never told me what your hold was on Jacopo Gianetti...”
“No, I didn’t.”
Baptista shrugged. “… It seems a pity that you have nothing with which to blackmail his son.”
Laughing, Aretino touched Baptista on the cheek, an intimate action he knew would irritate him.
“My dear friend, my patronage of Marco was not merely to annoy his father. It is true that Jacopo is dead, but his valuable secret lives on. As potent and damning as it ever was. When the Prodigal returns I will visit the young heir and then – slowly, drop by drop - bleed Marco Gianetti dry.” He chuckled, his belly jiggling. “Jacopo’s secret is just another part of his legacy, that’s all. And all legacies – like sins - pass down from father to son.”