by S. D. Sykes
“What do you want?” she said. Her arms were folded and her face was cold.
“I need to speak to Marco,” I told her. The room was bare, apart from a wooden bedstead and a blackened crucifix upon the wall. It was a monastic cell, so different from the extravagant chamber in which I had met Marco on my previous visit.
She turned away from me and wandered to a low, barred window. “Too late,” she said. “He’s gone.”
“Where?”
She cast me an accusing look over her shoulder, before turning away again. “I don’t know,” she said. As a momentary ray of sunlight caught her profile, I saw something in her face that I should have seen before.
“You do know where he is, don’t you?” I said. “Because Marco is your son.”
She turned back sharply. “Who told you that?”
“So, it’s true then?”
She pursed her lips, angry that I had drawn her.
“I need to speak to him,” I said.
“Why should I tell you anything? You! The man who sent the Signori di Notte here to take my son.”
“What?” I shook my head. “Of course I didn’t send them here.”
She drew her face into a scowl. “You lie! We saw them coming across the lagoon, soon after your visit. They’d dressed themselves in the cloaks and mantles of ordinary men, but we’re not stupid. Marco had time to escape.” Then she laughed at me. “So, you see. You’ve failed. The Signori can burn somebody else on their pyre.”
“They must have followed me,” I told the woman. “They’ve been spying on me, but I promise you that I did not give Marco’s name to them. I would never do that.”
“Your lies mean nothing to me,” she told me. “I know that you sent them.” Behind me, the elderly hunchback hissed a curse.
“No, that’s not true,” I said, with all earnestness. “I swear on it.”
She turned her face to mine and looked down her nose at me. Her face shared the same structural perfection of her son’s, but her skin had loosened from her skull, and deep vertical lines ran down her cheeks. “It doesn’t matter,” she told me with disdain. “Because Marco has gone, forever.”
“What do you mean?”
She looked to me with a superior smile, but would not answer.
This was a grave turn of events, for Marco was the only loose thread hanging from the tight ball of this mystery. If I could not speak to him, then I was not sure where I could turn.
I put my hand upon the abbess’s arm, trying not to convey my despair. “You must tell me where he is. Please. I—”
Before I had even finished the sentence, the crooked man was upon me, defending his mistress with the ferocity of a guard dog. With the momentum of his movement, and with the advantage of surprise, he was able to push me against the wall, but I soon stamped on his foot, causing him to fall onto the floor and shriek in pain. When I turned back to the abbess, she had shrunk away from me, like one of those pitiful women who are regularly beaten by their husbands, so I stepped away quickly, before asking her to sit. I did not want her to fear me, only to give me answers.
“Please, sister. Tell me where Marco is, and I can promise he will come to no harm.” As she turned her face from mine, my only option was to beg. “Please. Just tell me where I can find him. I just need to ask him a few questions. Nothing else.”
She kept her face to the wall. “No. I will never tell you, and you will never find him.”
“Please,” I said in desperation. “Please. Think again.”
She let out a great, contemptuous laugh. “Marco is gone, Englishman. Somewhere that you and your Signori will never dare to follow.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
There was no escaping John Bearpark on my return to the house, as Giovanni was guarding the water gate, ready to propel me to his master’s bedchamber as soon as my feet crossed the threshold. I was exhausted, my arms throbbed with pain, and I was thoroughly dejected after learning that Marco had disappeared. As a result, I was not in the best of moods when Giovanni pushed me into Bearpark’s bedchamber. In fact you might say I was spoiling for a fight.
The old man was sitting up in bed as I entered the long room, though his eyes were closed, his posture rigid, and I wondered at first if he were dead—placed like a stuffed bird in the center of a feast table. The shutters at the window had been opened a little, and a thin stripe of light cast its smile across the floor, but other than that the place was still suffused with the melancholy of decrepitude and mortality.
Giovanni whispered into the old man’s ear and he woke with a start, feeling about the sheets until his spectacles were safely mounted upon his nose.
“De Lacy?” he said, peering at me from behind the bottle ends. “Is that you?”
“It is.”
“So. Do you have a name for me? A name!” His words were croaked rather than spoken, and sounded like one of those oft-repeated sentences that are uttered by an old person whose mind has wandered.
“No,” I said firmly. “I don’t.”
At my response, the Bearpark’s fragility suddenly disintegrated. “Then what are you doing?” he shouted. “If you don’t find the murderer soon, then I’ll be dead!”
“Look. I—”
He interrupted. “Yet I hear that you were arrested outside the Arsenale? The Arsenale of Venice, of all places!”
“Yes,” I said rigidly. “And then I was thrown into the Pozzi, before being tortured.” I lifted my sleeves to show him the raw, stinging wounds that marked my wrists.
Bearpark waved these injuries away dismissively. “What did you tell them, eh?” he said. “What did you tell them?”
“I told them the truth, Bearpark,” I said, replacing my sleeves over my wrists with some petulance. “That I’m investigating Enrico’s death.”
Bearpark banged his hand onto the bolster, releasing a bloom of tiny feathers into the air. “By the bones of Saint Catherine, what did you do that for? Now I will have the bastards crawling all over the house.”
“I was being hung by my wrists from a rope, Bearpark,” I said. “I had to tell them something. Or would you prefer it if they had killed me?”
At this, the door opened and the room was suddenly invaded by a light that caused Bearpark to curse out loud. At first I thought our visitor was Mother, on one of her regular visits to Bearpark’s bedside, but as the door slowly closed, I saw a different figure outlined against the light. It was Filomena, carrying a bowl of steaming broth with steadfast, unblinking concentration.
Bearpark squinted into the distance. “Is there no peace? Who is it now? Not your damned mother, I hope.”
“It’s your wife,” I told him. “Bringing you some food.”
The old man gave a grunt and continued to watch Filomena as she cautiously made her way across the room, taking care not to spill a drop of the broth onto the floor. We had passed into Lent now, so this meal had been cooked with seashells and garlic, rather than meat. Perhaps Filomena had cooked it herself, which was why she was serving this dish to her ailing husband: another consequence of the ever-reducing household of Ca’ Bearpark.
As she approached her husband’s bed, the old man continued to grumble into his chin. “What are you doing here?” he said in Venetian. “I didn’t ask for any food.”
Filomena lowered her head. “You must eat, husband.”
“Must I?” he said with a grunt. “What do you care?”
“I care that you’re well.”
He let out a puff of anger. “What nonsense you speak, woman. You’d sooner I died!”
Filomena froze for a moment and then carried on, as if Bearpark had never uttered such a cruel accusation. She then sat next to her husband with the intention of spooning the soup into his mouth. I think it was this final indignity that riled Bearpark to violence, for it was then that he deliberately struck out his arm and launched the bowl of soup against Filomena, causing her to scream as the steaming broth leached through her dress and scalded her skin.<
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I rushed to Filomena’s side, pouring cold water from Bearpark’s pitcher onto her skirts, before she pulled the sodden tunic away from her skin and ran from the room in tears.
“God’s bones!” I shouted. “What are you doing, Bearpark? How can you be so cruel?”
“What’s it to you?” he said.
“She was only trying to feed you some soup!”
He wagged a finger at me. “Who are you? Tell me that. To lecture me about my own wife?”
“You don’t deserve Filomena,” I said.
“And I suppose you do?” A smile began to creep across his face. “Oh yes, I’ve seen you watching Filomena. Wanting her for yourself.”
“I don’t want her, Bearpark. I pity her. Who could not? With you as her husband.”
“Get out,” he rasped. “Get out of my house. You and that old sow you call Mother. If I have to drink another spoonful of her soup, I might die. The stuff is poison!”
“Have no fears,” I said firmly. “I have no desire to stay here.”
I turned to leave, but he shouted after me. “You’re no great investigator, Oswald de Lacy,” he shouted. “You’re just a cheat and a fraud.”
As I reached the door, Giovanni caught up with me and tried to block my exit. “Don’t worry, Oswald. My master’s mood will soon improve. The birth of the girl has upset him. But if you go to your room, then he will soon forget about this.” He put an unwelcome hand upon my arm. “I will speak to him on your behalf.”
“No,” I said, shaking Giovanni off. “Nothing would induce me to stay in this house. Nothing!”
Bearpark croaked from his bed, having heard my words, proving that his hearing was better than he pretended. “Good. Because you’re banished, de Lacy. Banished! If I ever see you on these premises again, then I’ll kill you myself.” His croak became a cough. The hacking, outraged cough of an old man whose last sands are tipping through the hourglass.
My heart thumped as I ran into Filomena’s chamber to find her sitting on the edge of her bed with her skirts raised and a wet and folded sheet lying across her legs.
“Are you all right?” I asked. “Did he burn you?”
“It’s not as bad as I feared,” she said. “The cloth of my gown is heavy, and only a little of the soup reached my skin.” She heaved a great sigh. “It is my husband’s behavior that’s caused me more pain.”
I sat down next to her on the bed and took her hand. “I’m so sorry, Filomena.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said wearily.
“It is. I’d angered Bearpark, just before you came in. It’s why he behaved so cruelly.”
She regarded me for a moment. “My husband is a cruel man, Oswald. You know that.”
“Yes, I do.” I hesitated. “Listen, Filomena. I have something to tell you.” She gave me a suspicious, sideways look. “I’m leaving Ca’ Bearpark today.”
Her hand stiffened. “Why?”
“Your husband has banished me from the house.”
“Why would he do that?” she said with a frown.
“Because I told him to stop treating you so poorly.”
She withdrew her hand sharply from mine. “But I asked you not to defend me, Oswald. You promised!”
“But I had to say something to him, you must understand that. He threw hot soup over you.”
She put her head in her hands and groaned. “I asked you not to interfere. Now my husband will punish me for your words.”
“No. I won’t allow it,” I said.
She lowered her hands and looked at me with fierce, scathing eyes. “But what can you do about it? You have no influence in this house. Especially now that you have been banished.”
I took her hand again, though she was reluctant to let me this time. “Listen. I’ve had an idea,” I said, refusing to relax my grip. “Leave with me, Filomena. Both you and your daughter. You don’t need to stay here.”
Now her expression changed to a look of incredulity. “What?” Suddenly she began to laugh, but it was not with joy. “You want me to elope with you?” she said. “Is that what you’re suggesting?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly, as I hadn’t given this proposal the slightest thought. In fact, it seemed to have fallen from my lips without passing through my brain.
“And where would we go?” she said, now succeeding in pulling her hand from mine. “Jerusalem? England? Because we certainly couldn’t stay in Venice.”
“I don’t know,” I said again, my heart thumping.
“Exactly,” she said. “You don’t know!”
“I realize this idea comes as a surprise,” I said, trying not to be deterred by her reaction to my offer. “But I can’t leave you here with Bearpark. Not when he is so cruel to you.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” she puffed. “I have my own ideas for surviving this marriage.”
“Which are?”
She waved this question away and then turned her back to me, refusing to speak for a few moments. “Do you pity me,” she said at length. “Is that why you’re making this extraordinary offer?”
“It started as pity,” I said frankly. “But I have other feelings now, Filomena.” I paused. “I’ve tried to suppress them, but they won’t go away.”
She turned back to face me and raised an eyebrow. “You’ve tried to suppress them?” she said disdainfully. “How flattering.”
I rubbed my hand over my face. “I’m sorry, Filomena. I didn’t mean to be insulting.”
“Are you in love with me, Oswald?”
Suddenly I felt stupid and dumbstruck, and struggled to tell her that I wasn’t sure.
“Perhaps you should be sure then,” she said. “Before you make such offers.”
“I don’t know how I feel exactly,” I said. “Only that I want to help you.”
She laughed again at this. “Help me? How can you help me, when you cannot help yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
She hesitated for a moment. “Listen to me, Oswald,” she said softly. “I know what follows you, and I know why you won’t face it.”
“No, you don’t,” I said, taken by surprise. “Nobody does.”
“Your mother cannot keep a secret,” she said. “And I’m not the only subject of servants’ gossip in this house. I have learned enough of your history to guess the rest.” She paused. “But you must listen to me, Oswald. Please, because it’s important.” I tried to turn away, but she put her hand on my shoulder. “You will never recover, unless you face it and stop running away.”
“I’m not running away,” I protested.
“Yes you are. You know it.” At this she released her grip, sat up straight, and bowed her head to me. “So, I thank you for your kind offer, Oswald, but I choose my husband and I choose Venice.”
Her words landed like a punch, leaving the throbbing blow of rejection. “Please accept my apologies then, Monna Filomena. I spoke out of turn.” I cleared my throat of its sentimentality, stood up, and then bowed my head. “I wish you every happiness with John Bearpark, and I bid you farewell.”
She called to me as I reached the door. “Don’t be angry, Oswald. I’m only speaking the truth.”
I left the room and slammed the door in my wake.
As I walked into the empty and dark piano nobile, I kicked a stool and watched it hurtle across the polished terrazzo until it hit the wall on the other side of the room, and then came to rest accusingly on its side. None of the servants appeared to restore it to its rightful position, despite the resounding clatter that I had caused, so I did it myself, before sitting down upon it in dejection.
As I stared into the dimness of the long, unfriendly room, my anger turned to despair. My arms still throbbed, my debt still needed paying, and Filomena had refused me. It was then, in this darkness, that the glimmer of the eight golden coins crept into my mind. These coins were still secreted away inside a sock, within another sock, at the bottom of my oak chest. Since finding them on Burano,
I had not even dared to look at them properly. I barely liked to think about them, since they induced a feeling of guilt, and yet I knew they were still there, hidden and gleaming with temptation.
They didn’t belong to me, so it would be wrong to spend them, but then again, what else was I to do with them? I would not declare their existence to Bearpark—not when these coins could secure us a room in an inn for a few nights. Not when they could pay for my escape from this city and from my creditor. With these coins, we could afford a berth to Marseilles, where a family friend still lived—or, at least I thought he did. This man would probably forward me the funds for Mother to return to England at least.
The eight coins could pay for all this, so why not spend them? It was not as if I was planning to use them to play at dice. Then I took a deep breath. If I took the coins from the purse and used them to fund an escape, then what had I become? A person who does not pay his debts, and a person who steals evidence from an investigation. I would be a coward and a thief.
I let these thoughts trickle through my mind, and then I pushed them away, for it was better to be a thief with no honor than a dead man.
When I told Mother that we were to leave Ca’ Bearpark, she heaved the most wearied of sighs. “First of all you forced me to leave England, Oswald, only to be driven across Europe like a prized heifer. Now comes the final insult. You want me to leave a gentleman’s house to stay at an inn.”
I rolled my eyes. “The pilgrimage was your idea, Mother.”
“It was nothing of the sort! You insisted I accompany you.” She picked up Hector and nuzzled his whiskery muzzle. As the dog tried to lick Mother’s face, I caught a draught of his repulsive, fishy breath. “Didn’t he, Hector? We didn’t want to come on this foolish journey, did we?”
I knew better than to argue farther. “Very well then, Mother,” I said. “Have it your own way. This pilgrimage was my idea.”
She smiled. “I’m glad you agree.”
“But if you agreed to be dragged to Venice by me, then you will agree to change our accommodation at my request.”