Radovan was loitering close by. ‘A great bridge,’ he murmured. ‘At night it is where the vagabonds and the displaced sleep, and there are many such.’
‘Rado speaks true.’ Sanuto lowered his voice. ‘It is said that there are so many crowded there under the bridge that late arrivals are tossed into the Canalazzo to drown.’
‘Is this true?’ Kazan exclaimed.
Radovan’s mouth tightened. ‘It is true, little one. There are many dangers in this city.’
Sanuto hushed him quickly and cast an anxious glance around the deck. He hurried on. The stones of Venezia, he said, were miraculous. There was much evidence of this. ‘Do you know that here in our city is the rock from which Moses drew water? Do you know that there are the stones on which Christ walked? On which his blood was spilled?’ Kazan’s head reeled with the stories of sawn-apart marble that revealed the image of a hermit – a bearded hermit – whose hands were folded in prayer. There was the weeping stone, the bleeding stone, the stone where, if you held your hand just so, just there, you could feel its beating heart.
‘And the lions, don’t forget the lions,’ Rizo insisted. His face was serious, full of awe at the wondrous thing he was telling them. ‘At night the stone dissolves and the lions come alive and wander the calli of the city. It is true! Me, no, I have not seen them. I would be afraid to look on them. But others have said so.’
Dai glanced across at Twm. ‘Better than the men whose heads grow beneath their shoulders,’ he murmured.
‘Do you believe any of this to be true?’
‘They believe it,’ said Dai. ‘What I believe does not matter. This is their city, these are their miracles.’ He paused, his face impassive but Twm knew there was more to come. ‘A city that floats on water, Twm; a city of brick and marble floating on streets of water. Isn’t that miracle enough?’
‘A miracle, maybe, but so is water piped across ravines and into the hans and cities of Anatolia. Men had a hand in these miracles. These Venetians, they must sink their foundations deep in the mud and silt.’
Marco Trevior was nearby. The closer they came to journey’s end, the more he found a reason to stand near them, near enough to overhear their conversation. Dai wondered if it had started after Spalato, and if that conversation between himself and Radovan had been observed. ‘You are an unbeliever, sior Thomas,’ he said now. ‘You must allow us our miracles. These seagulls travelling with us,’ he waved a hand at the swooping, screeching gulls, ‘these are also little miracles. It was flight of such as these that led our forefathers from the plain of the Veneto to safety in the islands of the lagoon when the marauders came. But it is true that the buildings rest on good, strong foundations – no less a miracle for that, as sior Davide says. We have learnt how to drive huge wooden stakes deep into the clay and pave the surface with oak timbers.’
‘Like a raft?’ said Dai.
‘Like a raft. Like a huge ship anchored in the lagoon, an Ark filled with all forms of life. If Noah’s Ark was a miracle, why not this city of ours?’
‘You are right, sior Trevior,’ Twm said. ‘I have seen nothing like Venezia. It truly is a marvel.’ He smiled, his dark, handsome face less taut than it used to be. ‘It is a miracle of God and men; will you allow me that?’
‘Indeed I will. We of Venezia are miracle workers.’ Trevior smiled frostily. ‘It is not true what the proverb says.’
‘Oh?’
‘Venetians are born tired and live to sleep. How could we build our city if we are so tired? How could we make money?’
‘And money is your second blood,’ Dai said and the man laughed again but his laughter was strained. He did not like this self-assured Welshman who behaved as if he were an equal, who guarded his women as if they were daughters of nobles, though he was nothing but a peasant.
‘I see you know our proverbs. You have travelled this way often enough, I think.’
They would have passed on but Marco Trevior touched Dai on the shoulder. ‘A word, sior Davide,’ he said.
Dai waited.
‘If you’ll take advice from a Venetian, sior?’
‘What’s to do?’
‘It is a city of miracles, true enough, and no man is allowed to speak ill of it.’
Dai considered. ‘Punishable, you mean?’
‘Since the Council of Ten was made permanent last year.’
Dai nodded. ‘I’ll see to it. Thank you for the warning.’ He waited: there was more.
‘Your womenfolk…’
‘Oh yes?’
‘I am sure they are good and virtuous, the fair one and the bright one. But Venezia – I love my city, you understand sior?’
‘Wrthgwrs.’
‘She likes her women to be discreet. Obedient. The bright one lets her tongue trip heedlessly.’
‘She will be heedful of this.’ He waited.
‘The sailor Radovan. He is a rogue. The Ten has warned him already, and fined him. Do not be taken in by him.’
‘I am not.’ Dai’s mouth smiled. ‘I am not taken in by anybody,’ he said, blandly. ‘Excuse me, sior.’ He walked away. Trevior glowered after him.
They sailed up the great street of water, passing other narrow waterways branching off from it, fog clinging to them, curling and licking the houses and gardens and monasteries and nunneries and places of business, the palaces and rich houses. A city that had once been wood and mud huts perched above the treacherous waters was now the grand home of the rich merchants of Venezia. There’d be great relief and rejoicing at their arrival. ‘Not for our safety,’ said Rizo of the curly hair, ‘but for the safe arrival of the goods we carry.’ They had no illusions, these Venetian sailors, despite their miraculous stories.
They were past the Arsenale, the great ship-building yard, bigger by far than the one they had seen in Candia; past the great basilica of St Mark, with its high domes shadowy in the fog; past the Palace of the Doge that was being rebuilt in grand style. It was the place of government where the Ten met weekly; it was the place where men vanished into dark prisons. The piazza was already crowded with the curious; rumours of the returning fleet had already spread across the city – a fishing boat, maybe, or a herdsman. Who knew? Rumours spread like the fire all Venetians dreaded.
Two tall pillars stood sentinel on the piazza, one surmounted by St Theodore, the other by the great winged lion of Venezia: between them hung two wretched men. ‘Another execution,’ muttered a sailor, and crossed himself. On the far side, another Benedictine monastery. ‘In Venezia there are all denominations,’ said Brother Jerome. ‘I shall stay with my brothers in the friary of Saint Francis on the Rivo Alto.’ He glanced towards Thomas, dark and handsome, his gaze fixed on the waters of the Canalazzo and the rich buildings that fronted it. ‘Thomas and I shall stay there,’ he said.
Dai nodded. It was as he had thought when they left Attaleia, and the journey had only confirmed it: Twm intended promising himself to the Order of the Franciscans. Thomas turned towards him. ‘I have promised to accompany you to Ieper,’ he said, ‘safe to Heinrijc Mertens. I shall honour that promise, Dafydd.’
Dai shook his head. ‘There’s no need, my friend.’ He used the words of his own country. Fy gefeilliog. ‘You know now what it is you want with your life. Start now. No more waiting.’
Thomas stared, pale-faced. ‘All my life, Dafydd, I have blamed you for my failure. I was wrong.’
‘Indeed you were. You are no failure, brother. You are at heart a peacemaker, a lover of peace, and yet you have lived too long at war with yourself. So few peacemakers amongst us. We need you, and people like you. If, as they say, England is to be at war with France as well as Scotland, we need you more than ever.’
‘You are a good man, Dafydd ap Heddwyn ap Rhickert.’ The dark man gestured towards the girl in the bow of the boat, her gold-copper-bronze hair bright against the pale gold of Agathi’s. ‘Take care of her. She is a star come to live amongst us.’
‘I know. I shall.’
‘You love her.’
‘Always. But she is not for me.’
The dark man stared at him, incredulous. ‘God made you for each other.’
‘She is not for me,’ he repeated. Even so, Kara Kemal’s words came into his mind: My son, who are you to decide what is and what is not to be? Only Allah the all-compassionate, the all-knowing decides.
The bells were still sounding. ‘That is for us, for the fleet,’ Trevior told them. The first time he had been trusted with the command of a ship, so many delays, so many anxieties but at last they were here, sailing up the Canalazzo, all secure. If only the man Radovan had not appeared! But now they were about to dock, and the threat of the Croatian would soon be gone.
They were approaching the bridge that spanned the Canalazzo under whose shelter the dispossessed slept and drowned at night. Its entire length was thronged with people cheering and shouting and crying with relief. Here was the fleet! Not lost but safe, and intact. Here was the fleet! The people welcomed the safe arrival of the men. The merchant-nobles thanked heaven for the safe arrival of their goods and their sons.
The fleet sailed on under the bridge and into the quayside of the Rivo Alto. The cammelli herded them to docking point. On the quayside an imposing welcome committee was hastily gathering: the Doge Francesco Dondolo, his followers, the priests, the important men of the city. Here they were to greet the late arrival of the eastern fleet. Trumpets blazoned and were muted by the damp, foggy air. Soon, the ramps would be let down and the noble sailor-merchants would walk in state towards the waiting committee.
Fishing boats were already docked at the quayside, their slithering, flailing cargo unloading on to mule carts and into baskets, slipping on to the ground where the city’s cats, the little lions of Venezia, lurked in the shadows waiting their turn. Turbot, sturgeon, red mullet, flounder, all the riches of the sea harvested for the pleasure of this sea-city. There was a lucky haul of bream and sea bass that always found a ready market with the rich. The poor contented themselves with small, silvery marsoni, cheap enough to be sold by the basketful. There were eels.
‘Good Fenland fodder,’ Edgar said. ‘Blue should be here.’ It was a restored Edgar now that he was so close to dry land. ‘I’m ravenous!’ He sniffed. Over the pervasive smell of fish was that of fresh-baked bread.
‘Ravenous? Aren’t we all!’ Dai looked more closely at a wooden tub being hefted on to the quay by a sturdy fisherman. ‘Now there’s lucky. Soft shell crabs still to be had this late in the autumn – and schie.’ He pointed to baskets of the heaped small grey shrimps that were local to these islands. ‘Best eaten live, shells and all.’
‘You and your stomach, Dafydd.’ But Twm knew now the reason for Dai’s obsession with food: the story he had told of his childhood, growing up as best he could during the terrible years of famine, his father dead in Llewelyn Bren’s revolt against the English overlords, his grandfather sacrificing himself so his grandson could eat, so that the young boy he was then could forage and steal to provide for the family. The head of his family at eight years old, desperately trying – and failing – to keep them from starvation. It was a heavy burden to bear, and he bore it lightly.
Dai grinned. ‘As bad as Edgar, isn’t it? Ah well, our stomachs must come later. First we must take our belongings and our cattle in charge, and find our lodgings and our merchants.’
Kazan tugged on his sleeve. ‘Agathi and me, we wish to spend some time in the hamam.’ She pulled a face. ‘So long a journey. We are not clean.’
Dai exchanged rueful looks with Twm. ‘There is no hamam,’ he said.
‘What do you mean? How can there be no hamam in such a great city?’
‘It’s what I say. Nothing like it here, Kazan. No fresh running water, no piped hot water…not here, nor in England.’ He sighed. ‘And certain it is there’s none in my country. Here, there’s no fresh water, see, except for rain water that’s stored in cisterns.’
She shuddered. ‘They are barbar, these Venetians.’
‘I cannot agree, siorina. It is true we must collect rainwater but now the bigolanti, the water carriers, you would say, bring fresh water from the mainland. We are very well served, even if we have no hamam.’ Trevior’s gaze flicked over her, from her head, down her body, to her feet in her soft-skin boots. He said nothing more but she shivered, hating the way his eyes raked her body. He swept past them, down the gangplank and on to the quay. There was cheering. Dai gripped Kazan’s shoulder.
‘Best stay quiet,’ he said, ‘and keep out of his way.’ He felt her eyes on his face. ‘This is not a man to be trusted,’ he murmured. He watched the man’s progress, his swagger down the gangplank on to the dock. He was greeted by a group of young men. He was laughing and smiling, at ease, relieved to be here in Venezia, his home, with his ship and cargo safe and with an idle winter to look forward to.
Sailors were coming down from the ship ready to unload the cargo on to the quay. Radovan and Rizo and Sanuto drew alongside Trevior. Dai saw Trevior’s sneering smile; he made some comment to the young nobles standing next to him that brought from them a burst of laughter and burning blood to Radovan’s face. He turned away from the lounging group of young nobles but Trevior laughed aloud contemptuously.
It was all so quick. Trevior glanced up at the cog, his gaze locked on Dai’s. He scowled and turned back to his friends. He must have made another jibe because Radovan swung round, fury in his face, and Dai heard him shout, ‘Not even you have the right! You have destroyed my family. You think you have escaped punishment. You are wrong.’ The next instant the Croatian had drawn a blade, his bread knife; it flashed up and down as he stabbed Trevior, once and once again, before he vanished into the crowd, swallowed up by the lingering fog. It had been the work of seconds. Trevior collapsed, blood seeping from the wounds, held up by the young men who were exclaiming with alarm and anger while his family still rejoiced at his arrival and the arrival of the goods. Then the outcry and the realisation that he was wounded and shrieking cries of lamentation and anger overrode the daily routine. It was tumult, an immediate order to hunt down the sailor who had dared strike a noble. A contingent of armed men set off into the crowded streets.
Rizo was there, Dai saw, and Sanuto, and they could have stopped Radovan but they didn’t. Justice, Dai thought, as claimed by the workers when nobles look after themselves. Like the Cymru, now the Sais were in charge. Only way to look after affairs was to take them in hand yourself. As for him, he hoped Radovan reached safety. He saw Trevior taken away, bleeding. He wouldn’t die. The knife thrust was not enough despite the blood. He’d seen such wounds before, with not enough force behind the blows to properly penetrate a man’s thick jacket. He wondered about Radovan and his dead father and the girl who was raped and the mother who was without hope. But it was not his business, he reminded himself; he had best set about keeping his little party safe in this city of splendour.
Francesco da Ginstinianis was waiting for him on the quay. He said, ‘You saw what happened?’
‘Some of it. The young man Radovan was provoked but I do not know what was said.’
‘He should never have been under Trevior’s command. I advised against it. Now he will be hunted and punished, this foolish young man. This is a serious crime, a worker to assault a noble with a weapon, and blood drawn.’ He was impatient. ‘Violence is an action that disturbs the peace and the honour of the state.’
‘The honour of his family was in his mind,’ Dai said, drily, ‘and the harm done to his sister.’
‘You know of this?’ Da Ginstinianis’ voice was sharp. ‘Of course. Gossip. Always there is gossip. But that was dealt with long ago, and Trevior fined.’ He shrugged. ‘After all, it is not a serious crime. Not for the workers. As they say, it is only placing the woman a little sooner in the state she would become by marriage and love.’
Dai said nothing. He wondered if da Ginstinianis would be so tolerant if it concerned his sisters but Dai had no wish to quarrel with him,
and it was clear they would never agree on this. The Venetian sighed again. ‘It is a bad affair.’ He glanced at the Welshman, would have said more but hesitated.
‘It’s nothing you need say, Francesco. I’m knowing to keep my mouth shut. I’m a foreigner in your city and I don’t know its ways.’
‘I am glad to hear you say this, my friend. Would you accept other advice?’
Dai nodded. He wondered if it would be the same that was offered by Trevior.
‘You are here for some days, I think?’
‘Only as long as we need for business. It’s across the mountains we want to be before the winter weather blocks the Pass.’
‘Even so, it would be well if your two young ladies were more appropriately clothed.’ He pulled a face. ‘This is a city where much store is set by appearance. All must be correct.’
‘Sior Trevior has already offered us this advice.’
‘Ah, my friend, please do not be offended by my plain speaking. It is practical advice I offer.’
He smiled. ‘Sior Marco is not always discreet, I know, but he would not wish your ladies to be open to comment and insult, as I do not. I realise it would be impossible, in a few days, to choose material and have clothes made.’ He hesitated again. When he spoke, it seemed to be at random. ‘You have met my two sisters.’ Another pause. ‘They are much the same small size as your Kazan and Edgar’s betrothed. I wonder…’
The Heart Remembers Page 2