I could sense Luca growing uncomfortable, and Gaetano and Giorgio were now staring fixedly at me as well. I was clearly hearing something they would rather I did not hear. My mind flew instantly to the murdered gnaga in Saint Mark’s Square. I tried not to look at any of them but mentally compared my memory of the menacing figure on the roof holding the severed head and the figures of these three men. I realised that it could have been either Gaetano or Giorgio. Luca had probably been the planner of the show.
“That is most commendable,” I said.
“Such deeds are not mere random acts of terror,” went on Garzoni, without explaining any further. It was not clear whether he assumed that I knew what he was talking about. “For what we are now planning it is essential that the city should be in a suitable state of fear. Fear is our element. It is an essential prerequisite for our great venture.”
I glanced again at Luca. He was attempting to look as stony-faced as possible, giving nothing away, but I could sense his growing anxiety as Garzoni talked on.
“That is why I continue to explore the world of occult mysteries,” the nobleman continued. “I am aware that Luca has his doubts about this area of my research…”
Luca gave a slight shrug, which could have meant anything.
“… but it is not mere eccentricity. Such mysteries can confer power on those who know how to harness them and certainly contribute to their ability to inspire fear. The Emperor Justinian commanded what were described as demons, but were probably familiar spirits. I will not be worried if my subjects think I consort with demons, so long as they fear my demons – and fear me at the same time.”
“Your subjects…”
“Yes, that is what I said. You will understand what I mean – once I have put you to the test.”
“You have seen my gifts.”
“I have, and I believe in them. I have ceased to believe that the count possesses any powers that can be of any use to me. He impressed me at first with what I now realise were cheap conjuring tricks. I have no further use for him. You seem a worthy replacement. Your powers are undeniable. But I need to know if I can trust you to put them to my service – exclusively to my service. That would seem to be what you were called to do. I have no doubt you were called here. But I need proof of your…” He paused. “Of your reliability. What I am going to ask of you will not be easy.”
As earlier, when Luca and the count had come with us to his chamber to witness my first test, I could sense the tension throughout the room. Gaetano and Giorgio had given up all pretence of being interested in the weather outside and were staring attentively at Garzoni. Luca’s pale face was pushed forward as he stared at me. I could feel sweat running down from my armpits and I imagined that my forehead must be glistening in the lantern-light.
“Giorgio,” said Garzoni, “give me the dog.”
I was beginning to feel a little sick.
Giorgio picked up Zosimos, who had been watching us with wary curiosity. The dog made no protest as he was placed on the table in front of Garzoni, but lay down and turned over on his back, his four paws raised, in a pathetic attempt to curry sympathy. Garzoni put his hand inside his cloak and pulled out a dagger. It had an ornamental handle inlaid with gaudy jewels, but it was clearly not just ornamental. Seconds later its purpose was made quite evident.
With one vigorous plunge and swipe Garzoni cut the throat of poor Zosimos, who did not even have time to whimper. There was a spurt of blood and a sudden convulsion of the legs, and then it was over.
My mind was racing. There was one flickering moment of relief that I had not been asked to do the deed, and then came a great surge of dread as logic got to work, suggesting what the natural sequel must be.
“Your task is clear?” said Garzoni, wiping the dagger on Zosimos’s belly, and leaving glistening streaks on the white fur.
“You wish me to do the same to the creature’s master.” I managed to say it without an audible tremor.
“If you cannot do it you are of no use to me. Is that clear?”
“It is.”
“Gaetano, call the count,” said Garzoni.
22
“I will fetch him,” I said in a firm voice. I snatched up a candle, turned round and strode down the hall towards the staircase.
There was a moment of uncertain dithering behind me and then Garzoni said: “Follow him.” I heard Gaetano’s footsteps behind me.
As soon as I turned the corner and started ascending the stairs I increased my pace to a run, protecting the candle flame with my hand. I tried to make as little as noise as possible so that Gaetano would not be alerted and increase his pace as well. Everything was now going to depend on the count’s swiftness of reaction. I did not have high hopes.
I reached the count’s room and threw the door open. He was sitting at his desk, writing, with the lantern at his elbow. He spun round in alarm.
I grabbed his arm and tugged him to his feet. “We have to run,” I said in English.
“What – where…” He spoke in English as well. His hand reached out to the lantern, as if its light might clarify things.
I yanked him to the door. “There’s no time to explain.”
“I don’t understand…”
“They want to kill us.”
“What are you talking about?” He jerked free of my grip.
Maybe I should have brought up his pet’s corpse, I thought with savage anger. At that moment Gaetano appeared in the doorway.
“He doesn’t want to come,” I said to Gaetano.
Gaetano grunted and leaned forward and grabbed the count by his shoulder.
“What’s the matter?” said the count, now clearly alarmed.
I said in clear English: “They have killed your dog. They are going to kill you.”
He gave a whimper, rather like Zosimos himself, which suggested that perhaps he had taken in the message. Gaetano pulled him out of the room, holding his arm firmly. The count held his lantern up in his free hand, clearly desperate not to lose the benefit of illumination. I snatched up some sheets of paper from the desk and followed a couple of paces behind, holding my candle high.
I went on, still enunciating with special care, “When we reach the top of the staircase I’m going to attack Gaetano with fire. You will then run with me to my bedroom.”
“Are you mad? What –”
“Just do as I say. It’s our only hope.”
We kept walking and I lowered my candle and set light to the sheets of paper. Gaetano turned round at the unexpected flare of light and I hurled the blazing sheets into his face. It did not set him ablaze; I had not expected it to. But it made him release the count so that he could bat the flaring paper away, and as he did so I gave him a shove so that he staggered backwards, losing his balance, and fell down the stairs. I did not stop to watch his crashing descent but grabbed the count and ran towards my bedroom.
“You could have killed him,” gasped the count.
I did not bother replying. I was sure that Gaetano was robust enough to survive even such a fall. Seconds later his bellow of pain from behind and below us assured us he was still alive.
I slammed the bedroom door shut behind us and turned the key. Then I pointed to the open trapdoor above us.
“But –”
I jumped on to the chair, and from there to the chest of drawers, and said, “Follow me.”
A few seconds later I was up in the loft and leaning down towards the count. “Give me the lantern.” Whatever else, we did not want to be clambering around the roof space in the dark.
He did as he was told. He was evidently in a state of shock.
There was a rattling at the door. He turned round to face it, as if under some spell.
“Quickly,” I hissed.
“Maybe I should…” He seemed to be wondering whether to open up to see what they wanted.
“They will kill you,” I said, slowly and deliberately. “As they killed your dog.”
There was a gr
eat crash against the door, and I could see it shake.
The count gave a little squeaking noise and then clambered on to the chest of drawers and stretched his hand up to me. A few seconds later I had managed to haul him up beside me. “Hold on to me,” I told him, and lay flat on the boards. Leaning down as far as I dared, while the count held me in a less than Herculean grip, I managed to get a scrabbling grasp on the edge of the wardrobe-top where it flanked the wall and give it a sudden jerk. It was lucky that the wardrobe was not full and that the Venetian floor had the usual idiosyncratic contours; with just that one convulsive jerk I managed to tip it forward. The ensuing crash coincided with another one at the door, where there was a simultaneous splintering sound.
The overturned wardrobe would hold them up for a minute or two, at least, I hoped. I pulled myself back up and turned to see the count was kneeling like a child at his first communion, holding up the lantern and gazing around at the vast extent of the loft, the shadowy shapes of beams and rafters disappearing into the black depths. He was also noticeably shaking.
I pointed to the small dormer window I had seen earlier and we clambered across the boards, moving in a fast crouching walk and sweeping away cobwebs, imagined or not, from before our faces. The window had a bolt, which was rusty but opened with a screeching jerk. It gave on to the stone guttering that ran all the way around the edge of the roof. The cool fresh air that swept in was a relief; it had stopped raining.
“And then where do we go?” said the count; his body seemed to have stopped trembling, but the tremor had passed to his voice.
“We should be able to get on to the next building,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt.
I stepped out on to the gutter, which seemed solid enough. To my left the tiles sloped upwards, glistening with rainwater. I leaned in towards the tiles, and propped myself against them, urging him to follow. There were agitated noises from the room we had just left.
With a slight moan he came out after me, holding the lantern up against the vast night sky, and we both stood there for a few seconds, breathing hard and taking in the spectacle. The moon had managed to rive a tattered passage through the storm-clouds and it cast a spectral light over the city. We were too far from the front of the palace to see the Grand Canal but we could make out the dark shapes of the city’s towers and domes; to our left was the sharply leaning tower of Santo Stefano and straight ahead the great dome of the Salute, glistening with an argentine light. At any other time it would have been a privilege to be in this position.
I gazed to my right in the direction of the front of the palace. At a certain point along the straight stretch of the roof I thought I had seen a flicker of light. Then something dark and square thrust out from the tiles. What …
“Quickly!” I said. “Up the roof.”
What I had seen was another dormer window being opened. A dark, hulking shape emerged, either Gaetano or Giorgio, and clambered out on to the coping. The light remained inside; presumably he was not bringing his lantern out with him.
We had an advantage of seconds and we scrambled up the wet tiles.
“If we slip…” said the count.
“Don’t,” I said curtly. I could not think of any better advice. Then I added: “Leave the lantern.” He needed both hands free, and the light only made us easier to spot. He let go of it and it slid down the tiles to the gutter, where it went out.
We reached a large square block of bricks, capped by two chimneys, and scuttled behind it, lowering ourselves to a squatting position, and holding on to the bricks to steady ourselves.
I could hear the man below moving along the gutter, breathing hard and furiously. He must have seen the flaring path of the lantern and so knew more or less where we must be.
“He’ll have a pistol,” said the count in an agitated whisper.
“Then we need a weapon ourselves,” I said, looking round.
“There,” said the count. On top of the brick block, next to the curved cylinder of the chimney, was a loose curved tile, one that had been left over when the roof was last retiled, presumably. He picked it up.
We heard the man halt. He had reached our rejected lantern and he was presumably scanning the rooftop. It would not take him long to realise that the only possible hiding place was where we were. Seconds later we heard him start to scramble up the tiles himself, but he did not seem to be heading straight towards us. Probably he wanted to take us from the flank.
“They killed Zosimos?” said the count suddenly.
“Yes,” I said, in some surprise. It was an odd question at that moment.
“Very well then,” he said, and stood up straight.
“What are you doing?”
The count did not answer, but pulled his arm back and hurled the tile, just as a sudden loud bang came from the left, accompanied by a flash of light. I thrust my head round the side of the brick pedestal and saw the man reeling back, evidently struck by the tile; both his hands were still raised and clutching the just-fired pistol. He had been standing on the ridge at the top of the roof and now the pistol fell from his grip as, with both arms flailing wildly, he went tumbling down the tiles. He let out an absurd high-pitched wail, and disappeared over the edge of the guttering. Seconds later there came a great splash as he hit the water of the side canal.
I spun round to the count, who was leaning on the chimney-pedestal and panting. “Are you hurt?”
“I think it grazed me,” he said, putting his left hand on his right shoulder.
“That was – that was very brave,” I said. I could have said foolhardy, but brave seemed better. It had also been totally unexpected. Clearly, one should never judge from appearances. Certainly he did not now look like a hero; he had covered his face with one hand and the panting was modulating into the customary whimpering. Well, maybe it was a tribute to Zosimos – who could be proud of him.
There was a sound of splashing from the canal, mixed with a vague watery bellowing, suggesting that our follower had survived his fall. Maybe I should have felt relieved, but actually I did not give a damn.
“We’d better get away from here,” I said, “in case anyone else comes after us.”
We made our way back to the relative safety of the gutter and went all the way to the end of the palace. There was a drop of about ten feet to the roof of the next building, which fortunately had an altana resting more or less against the side of the Palazzo Garzoni: this was a wooden platform, where the inhabitants of the building could take the sun, dry their clothes or just enjoy the view. The altana had a protective railing all around it so it was reasonably safe for us to hang from our gutter and drop down onto it. I went first and was thus able to assist the count in his landing.
The altana was naturally near a dormer window that provided access to the roof. We had little choice but to break a pane and reach inside to open it, and once on the common staircase on to which it gave were able to descend to the street without arousing the curiosity of any of the neighbours. I thought it unlikely that Garzoni would have sent anyone after us, since their priority would be to rescue their fallen comrade. Nevertheless I insisted that we ran for at least two minutes, until I felt we had put a sufficiency of calli and campi between us and the Palazzo Garzoni. We halted in Campo Santa Maria del Giglio, the count complaining of a stitch.
We leaned against a shop front just in front of the church’s façade; the pompous statues and curious bas-reliefs were dimly visible in the moonlight.
“Are you hurt?” I said.
He put his hand to his shoulder. There was a vicious tear in his jacket but no blood.
“No,” he said. He seemed quite surprised.
“That was quite a throw.”
“I’ve had experience,” he said, not without a touch of satisfaction.
“I think you and I have a good deal to learn about one another.”
“Well, you start,” he said. He had dropped all pretence at a foreign accent; English was clearly hi
s mother tongue and it had, as I had suspected, a hint of the Midlands about it.
“Maybe we should get to somewhere safer first. I suppose there’s no reason why we shouldn’t go to my house. They have no idea who I am.”
“Ah,” said the count.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, when you burst in on me just now I was in the process of writing a letter to his Excellency.”
“I see. Telling him who I was.”
“Well, yes. After all, I had no reason to be fond of you.”
“The feeling was mutual,” I assured him. “What had you written?”
“That I had recognised you as a cicerone – the same man who had been arrested with the English tourist.”
“I see. And my name and address were probably in all the gazettes.”
“Oh yes, no doubt about that. I saw them myself.”
I thought of something. “When we left your room I grabbed some papers to set on fire. Could they have included your letter?”
“Where did you get them?”
“The corner of the desk.”
“I’m afraid not. Those were – well, they were alchemical formulae I was trying to learn. The letter was in the middle of the desk, where I was writing.”
So my house was clearly out of the question as a refuge. “You know,” I said, changing the subject, “I was worried that it was going to take some time to convince you that Garzoni and his henchmen wanted you dead. But you accepted the idea very quickly.”
“Well, I knew that Luca didn’t like me. It was just a question of whether he would be able to persuade his Excellency.”
“But you knew they might kill you?”
“Well, I didn’t know for sure but I’d certainly picked up some hints that they were dangerous people. They were always practising with pistols. They have a whole armoury.”
“And you still wanted to stay with them?”
“Where was I supposed to go? I don’t have any money.”
Ascension Page 22