Eek.
The boatman pushed off, grunted a warning, then swung the rudder-oar over their heads and settled it in the stern row-lock. The bridge slid away and they were in midstream, the current holding the small boat steady in the Tiber’s black waters. It was early morning, barely light, and the shadowy embankments appeared as extensions of the river’s lightless surface, pulled up at the edges like a channel awaiting the overflow of some mightier flood. Mooring rings of weathered stone projected vaguely out of the gloom. They passed to the right of the island, watched by water buffalo whose heads appeared as monstrous busts until they swung about, suddenly losing interest. Abandoned stairways rose out of the water for a step or two, then broke off, leading nowhere. The entrance to the Cloaca Maxima was the black mouth of an endlessly patient predator, waiting for whatever the eddies might carry within its maw. Salvestro, Bernardo, and Don Antonio stared in as they passed. A dull jolt from the left was the weak summer debouchment of the Marrana. Downstream from the mouth, the buildings set farther back were a jumble of shadows that sank slowly into the sloping ground, becoming the ruins of a past city or the future of the city just passed, Rome and Ro-ma, both quitted now as the river cut through the old walls at Testaccio and widened into a placid flood a hundred paces wide.
Eek!
A rat? A bird? Something wrong with the boat? Larches and willows lay toppled on the left bank, cut down to clear the paved towpath where, an hour hence, oxen and water buffalo would begin their trudge upriver, drawing after them barges and lighters. For now the river was almost empty. They passed a solitary fisherman, then the first of the boat-stations where men were busying themselves loading cargoes, hoisting small square sails, shouting to each other. It was still early. The sun rose and the river transformed itself, alternately a glaring mirror and a transparent spyglass through which the passengers sprawling in the boat could see the Tiber’s beds of yellow sand shift and roll with the motions of the current. At Magliana a great barge lay alongside a landing stage that seemed hardly sturdy enough to secure it. Switzers stood guard on its decks. Liveried men were draping pennants over its sides. They continued on around this first and greatest of the river’s bends, Don Antonio leaning out over the side to keep the barge in view until their own boat began to heel and he drew back hastily.
E-eek. …
The three men looked at each other, Salvestro, Bernardo, Seròn, but no one said anything, and the boatman stood there, his skin burned nut brown from the days spent under the same sun that burned down now, silently guiding his vessel past the sandbanks and their raucous pelicans, past the clamorous stations whose noise broke over them in washes that just as quickly lost themselves in the gurgling of the waters, past Tor di Valle, Vicinia, and Acilia, past a dozen nameless hamlets whose existence was signaled only by the thin columns of smoke hanging in the sky above them, the river widening almost imperceptibly as they passed the mouth of the Galeria, again when the Tiber itself forked, and rounding the thick brush of the Isola Sacra, they glimpsed the massive worked stones of great walls, smashed and abandoned now, then on the opposite bank a well-kept fortress, lagoons beyond it, the first sprinkling of huts, sheds, and houses, and then there were no more bends to round. Before them was the sea. They were at Ostia.
Eek, eek, eek. …
It was an intermittent squeak, sounding irregularly and without warning as Seròn ushered them out of the boat, now from the left, now from the right, a brief silence as they passed the inn, then right again as they threaded a path through the crowd that had gathered in front of the stand, erupting unpredictably but every few steps that were taken down the quay to the jetty, its source quite clear now: Don Antonio Seròn’s new shoes.
He halted above the mutinous footwear. The brooch pinned to his hat, the tracery of his scabbard, and the handguard of his sword all bore the same intricate floral motif. The buckles of his shoes did, too. Without the shoes the ensemble would appear unbalanced and dissatisfying. His two charges watched him blankly. In the picture that would surely fix this day in albuminous tempera for the pleasure of posterity, His Holiness would be shown in rich purple, waving from his platform to a beautifully detailed (a certain amount of artistic twisting would be necessary) Santa Lucia. The surrounding rabble of prelates, orators, and peasants would be clothed in muddy or madder reds, Vich outstanding in fugitive orpiment, portrayed as a wastrel Hercules in the poisoned skin of a lion; himself, Seròn, in durable ultramarines, the red of his shoes traduced by vairy blues, for their sedition. And these two? The dupes?
“Here she is: the Santa Lucia” he declared with a flourish. Their heads turned to the vessel at the end of the jetty. “Savor her name, for history will link it with your own: Salvestro and Bernardo of the Santa Lucia. …”
“A fine vessel,” said Salvestro.
He watched them watching, Bernardo following his companion’s motions almost exactly. The big man had fidgeted throughout the journey down the Tiber. Nerves, perhaps. He looked more closely himself. The same patchwork of new and old planking, one mast slightly askew, Jacopo on deck, the sails furled and looking whiter than he remembered. Perhaps the crew had scrubbed them, but it seemed an unlikely task for them to undertake, and as they drew nearer he saw that the canvas had not been scrubbed or even patched. The sails were new. He gaped up into the tangle of worn ropes and lines.
“Rigged ’em last night,” said Jacopo. “Whole team from the loft over there. You coming aboard?”
The three men filed down the gangplank, and introductions were made. Jacopo stared at Bernardo in perplexity. Seròn slapped the big man on the back.
“Wish you had him as crew, eh, Jacopo? Fellow the size of this.”
“Yes,” said Jacopo after a pause. Bernardo laughed, and Seròn joined in. “Crew’s still sleeping off the farewell party,” he said. “Alfredo too.”
“Captain Alfredo,” Seròn corrected him, and Jacopo nodded acquiescence. “Sore heads all round, then,” he continued in more jocular tones. “Not to worry. Plenty of time for introductions on the voyage.” He noticed a number of casks stacked up on the Santa Lucia’s decks that had not been there before. The water barrel looked unfamiliar, too. Perhaps his expression was unguarded, or perhaps Jacopo was the type to sense another’s discomfort.
“Something wrong, Don Antonio?”
Insolent cur. He shook his head. Salvestro was watching him curiously.
“I feel sick,” said Bernardo. “I think I’m going to—”
He barely made the three paces to the side, from where his stomach emptied itself noisily into the water. Must be nerves, Seròn told himself. He stole a glance at the other one, who was distracted now by his companion’s distress. Jacopo raised an eyebrow.
“We’re hardly even afloat yet,” Salvestro told the big man as he straightened and wiped his mouth.
“Let’s go ashore,” suggested Seròn. “I have business at the sail-loft, but you two deserve a measure of rum at the Last Gasp.” He turned to Jacopo. “His Holiness will be here sometime after midday. Have everything prepared by then.” He kept his tone light.
Ashore, Bernardo’s sickness disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. His face grew ruddy again as they walked back toward the inn. The crowd in front of the stand was bigger and more boisterous now. A few people glanced curiously at them as they stood there, then whispered to each other.
“Imagine,” Seròn told the two of them. “When you return it will be like this in every street and tavern in Rome.”
“What?” said Bernardo.
“Your fame,” he explained. “Your renown, so conduct yourselves accordingly. Your lives will be very different when you return. This is merely a foretaste.”
“A what?” asked Bernardo.
“I will meet you for our last drink together shortly.” He raised his voice above the noise of the crowd. “Over there.” He pointed to the inn.
When the two men were safely lost in the crowd, he turned and walked briskly back down the
quay, but instead of making for the sail-loft he turned right, toward the jetty and thence the ship.
Jacopo eyed him warily as he strode down the gangplank for the second time.
“Where did all this come from?” he demanded of the mate, who adopted an expression of baffled innocence, only goading him further. “Those casks. The sails. Where is the crew you were paid to hire?”
“Belowdecks, like I said,” answered Jacopo. “And this stuff came from you, least that’s what I was told. Came yesterday, most of it.”
He must be lying, thought Seròn, yet the mate’s resentment, his very lack of explanations, both pressed the case for his truthfulness. Not from me, he thought. So who?
“Get your men on deck,” he ordered the man. “Clean them up, and when His Holiness arrives I want them standing in a line against the rail.”
The mate stood his ground and stared at Don Antonio. “Haven’t you got something to explain?” he said.
Seròn stared at the mate for a long moment before his ire erupted. “Me! Explain myself to you, to the villain who—”
“The big one,” Jacopo interrupted him. “Bernardo. You somehow forgot to mention him?”
“Good God! There are how many, fifteen, twenty of you? Do it while they sleep.”
“There are eight of us. And a carpenter,” said Jacopo.
“Nine, then. Still enough, if you want to be the master of this vessel.” The challenge hung there between them.
“Enough,” said Jacopo. It might have been agreement, or a question. He was looking out over the Santa Lucia’s prow, out to sea. He was pensive now, and Seròn knew that he had chosen his man well. “Where would you have it done?” Jacopo asked.
“Anywhere in open waters,” replied Seròn. “One patch of ocean is much like another, is it not?”
Minutes later he was walking quickly back to the inn, the squeaking of his shoes piling irritation on anxiety. Someone had supplied the ship with provisions and sails. Someone had introduced a new figure in his design, disrupting it. … Or was he himself only a figure in someone else’s plan. But whose? Vich’s? Impossible. Vich was already yesterday’s man, his secretary’s plan too far advanced, and he was moving forward now like the huntsman for the kill. The rest was mere execution. They would know at the sail-loft who had presumed to intervene in his delicate work. The sail-loft next. He had time. The Pope would be enthroning his bargelike behind about now, the barge itself just casting off. He squeezed his way in at the door of the Last Gasp. The inn, then he would make his way to the sail-loft, then the Pope would arrive, and then the ship would sail. He looked about the crowded room, searching for Salvestro and Bernardo. Where were they?
“Sit down, Don Antonio.”
He had not had time to turn before a hand clamped his neck and pulled him sideways. Something knocked the backs of his legs, unbalancing him, he was falling … A chair. He fell into it. A group of drinkers standing next to him glanced down curiously.
“Now calm yourself,” the same voice commanded. “And smile.”
He smiled. His neck was released, and the same hand clapped him heartily on the shoulder. Diego’s face pushed itself into his and began talking, of people and places, of days and times within those days. He described the ship and its condition, then returned to Rome, an inn on the river, a room within that inn, a man within that room, waiting for himself, Don Antonio Seròn, then the cause that he had prosecuted through the heat of summer, admitting frankly when his store of facts ran out and speculation took their place. He knew everything. His speculations were mere details, and all correct. Antonio’s head began to spin, then his whole body, as though he were being swung about by the neck faster and faster. How could he know these things? Had Vich found out and loosed his mastiff upon him? Then the soldier leaned closer still and began to speak of the only two players who had not been named, Salvestro and Bernardo.
“We had a pact, you and I,” the soldier said, “and you were foolish to try to break it.” His voice was calm, tinged with disappointment and regret. “You might have placed a pair of scarecrows on the deck of that hulk, dressed them up, and waved them good-bye. But you chose those two, and that was very foolish, for they are mine: your fools are my cutthroats, mine. …” He shook his head at this, then went on. “You told me that I would gain Fernando’s ear, that you would press my case at court and I would be heard and given the justice denied me. But you intended no such thing, and that was foolish, too. You betrayed your master, Don Jerònimo, you betrayed me, your ally, and now you betray yourself. Yes,” the soldier added at his expression of bafflement, “yourself, too. For I will have my cutthroats, and I will have the King’s ear, too, and you will help me, you will help me, but knowingly now, just as you have these last months, imagining that I was your fool. …”
He spoke a few more words, and Don Antonio thought at first that he had misunderstood, or not heard, for the inn was noisy, but when Diego’s intention was plain he felt his spinning head slow and stop, and he could not banish the smile, genuine now, that spread across his face or quell the sensation bubbling in his breast, incredulity mixed with ballooning mirth.
“That is my purpose and course,” the soldier concluded. “Are you agreeable, Don Antonio?”
Seròn nodded quickly and rose, as much to conceal his expression as to escape the soldier’s further attentions, muttering his agreement, then explaining that time was pressing, business to attend to at the sail-loft, preparations to make …
“Run along, then, Don Antonio,” the soldier said complaisantly. “Attend, prepare. Do as you will.” He watched the secretary squeeze himself among the drinkers and disappear. The contemptible functionary had accepted his decision more easily than he imagined. Don Antonio would be laughing to himself now, outside, on his way to the sail-loft, already rehearsing the maneuvers of Vich’s disgrace and his own succeeding investiture: Don Antonio Seròn, Orator of Fernando the Catholic. … Diego occupied himself with these musings on the secretary’s intrigues.
“He wasn’t, you know.”
The soldier’s head came up. A small wiry man wearing a long leather apron stood before him. A tradesman of some sort.
“What?”
“That man you called ‘Don Antonio.’ He wasn’t Don Antonio,” the man said. “He was an impostor.”
“Really? Well, that is true enough. …” He was about to smile. Something in the man’s face stopped him. “What do you mean?” he asked sharply.
“I’ve just been talking to the real Don Antonio,” the man continued. “Had a message for him. He’s over there by the door.” The man looked around guardedly. “Well, he was over there. Gone now.” The man turned to go.
“Wait,” barked Don Diego, his skin tightening and his fingers twitching. In the pit of his stomach he felt the churning begin again. “What message?”
“From a gentleman by the name of Salvestro. He attends Don Antonio in the sail-loft. Where I work,” he added for the soldier’s benefit.
“But it wasn’t even moving,” Salvestro protested.
“Right,” Bernardo countered. “If it had been, then I’d have been all right. It was my guts, see? Moving about like this”—his arms flapped about—” and then that boat, the big one over there, it was still, so they sort of knocked against each other, and I was sick. And I was nearly sick last night, too. Pierino was nearly sick, too. Everyone was, even Rodolfo. They were asking where you were. I said you were praying with the monks.”
Salvestro laughed shortly. “Right,” he said.
“They’ll say a few prayers for us while we’re gone, won’t they?”
“Of course they will,” said Salvestro.
A few people stopped to stare at them as they approached the crowd gathered about the stand. Bernardo stared back. A woman selling fruit was moving among the men and women there, and Bernardo realized that he was hungry.
“I’ll wait here,” said Salvestro. “Then we’ll go to the inn.”
Bernardo
edged his way among the crowded bodies in pursuit of the fruit. The woman’s head bobbed in and out of view. He kept having to change direction and quickly grew frustrated, barging people aside and then, to escape their wrath, barging other people aside. The fruit-seller’s head popped up, then disappeared, then reappeared, then popped down again while Bernardo charged about making himself unpopular. Eventually he felt a tap on the shoulder.
“Apples, sir? Very good apples, these. …”
They were, indeed, very tempting, and Bernardo was about to say, “Yes, I’ll take half a dozen,” when he remembered he had no money. He told her this, but she kept making the same offer, over and over in an irritating whine. In the end he shouted at her and she went away. He looked up at the stand. Something stirred in his memory, to do with the Pope, who, Don Antonio had promised, would sit up there and watch them as they sailed away. He and Salvestro would wave, as promised, but that wasn’t it. He turned about to look for Salvestro, but there was no Salvestro. Salvestro was gone. Again.
Now, thought Bernardo, is the time to keep a cool head. He moved more carefully, asking politely that people should step aside, working his bulk among the chatterers and starers. He had felt foolish, emerging from beneath the tables at the Broken Wheel. He wasn’t about to make that mistake again. No. This time Salvestro could do the waiting and worrying while he, Bernardo, did the disappearing. There was the inn. Salvestro was undoubtedly within it. He looked about. There was the ship, there the jetty, and Don Antonio walking upon it. Odd, though he wasn’t about to worry about that, either. There was the landing stage where they had arrived. There was a large tumbledown building next to it, like an overgrown shed. There were some children outside. He liked children. He imagined Salvestro beginning to wonder where he had got to, then worrying, growing frantic, finally overturning tables in his search through the inn (where he would not be), last of all, perhaps, taking refuge beneath them. … He liked that, too. He would play with the children while Salvestro tore his hair out and made a fool of himself.
The Pop’s Rhinoceros Page 53