The Spy of Venice

by Benet Brandreth

  THE SPY OF VENICE

  Benet Brandreth

  Contents

  Dramatis Personae

  Scenes

  A Note to the Reader

  Prologue: Venice, August 1585

  Act One: Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, March 1585

  Interlude: Rome, March 1585, the Villa Montalto

  Act Two: London, April 1585

  Interlude: Venice, April 1585

  Act Three: The Road to Venice, June 1585

  Interlude: Venice, June 1585

  Act Four: Venice, July 1585

  Interlude: Venice, August 1585

  Act Five: Venice, August 1585

  Epilogue: Venice, August 1585

  Historical Note

  Acknowledgements

  Extract from The Assassin of Veroan

  Copyright

  For Kosha

  Those lines that I before have writ do lie,

  Even those that said I could not love you dearer

  Dramatis Personae

  Stratford

  John Shakespeare

  Alderman of Stratford. Father to William.

  William Shakespeare

  A shrewd-faced lad who might have made something of himself in the glove trade were it not that his mind wandered.

  Mary Shakespeare née Arden

  Wife of John and mother of William. A woman of whom it is said that had she been Hercules’ wife she would have done six of labours and saved him so much sweat.

  Anne Shakespeare née Hathaway

  William’s wife and mother to his children.

  Sir Thomas Lucy

  Justice of the Peace and MP for Warwickshire. A robust defender of Her Majesty and of the Church of England.

  Matthew Hunt

  Steward to Sir Thomas Lucy. A man as gross in manners as in appearance.

  Alice Hunt

  Daughter of Matthew Hunt. A fire waiting only the right fanning to flare.

  London

  Sir Henry Carr

  Ambassador to the Serene Republic of Venice.

  Henry Carey, Baron Hunsdon

  Patron of players, the Queen’s cousin, some say half-brother.

  John Towne

  A usurer, hot in temper and deed.

  John Hemminges

  Actor. Is like the mountain that first announces itself by a sudden avalanche.

  Nicholas Oldcastle

  Actor. Is there space enough within his tun of flesh to fit all the meat and sack and still have room for such good humour?

  Ben Nightingale

  Actor and writer. If talent were water, he’d not fill a thimble.

  Adam Watkins

  Sir Henry Carr’s man. His nose is broken. Do not ask him how it came so.

  Fallow

  Sir Henry Carr’s steward. Such efficiency as his is bought at the price of grey hair and a short temper.

  Christopher Hall

  Sir Henry Carr’s secretary. Young ambition, eager for advancement.

  Arthur from Norwich

  A lad for the ladies’ parts.

  Robert Greene

  Playwright, poet, rogue, rascal and keeper of grudges.

  Constanza Briaga

  Daughter of a musician at court.

  Ben Connor

  A carter. Sour in disposition and demeanour.

  Venice

  Isabella Lisarro

  Courtesan of Venice. If beauty had a name, it would be Lisarro’s. Double-gifted for, to her jewelled appearance, she adds the lustre of a brilliant mind. Double-cursed then to be surrounded by men who value these things not for themselves but only as adornments to their own raiment.

  Maria

  Isabella Lisarro’s maid and mother to Angelo.

  Vittoria Accoramboni

  Duchess of Bracciano. Widow of the Pope’s nephew and married to her first husband’s murderer. When the Devil comes he does not show himself with cloven hoof but in the guise of an angel. The better to trap the unwary.

  Antonio

  Captain of the Duchess of Bracciano’s guard. Hair as steely grey as his regard, eyes as hard as his grip.

  Salarino

  Landlord of the House of the White Lion.

  Jacopo Comin or Robusto, known as Tintoretto or Il Furioso

  Painter and lover of women and all things that have in them light and energy.

  Francesco Tiepolo

  A bravo of the town. Gorgeous as a peacock and just as loud.

  Lucio Dandolo

  A young nobleman of Venice. As prideful as the lion and as fierce.

  Marco Venier

  Patron of arts, beauty and wit.

  Faustina

  One of Marco Venier’s circle. A tongue as long and sharp as a blade.

  Andrea

  Another of Marco Venier’s circle. Just because he is round in appearance does not mean he has no sharp edges.

  Iseppo da Nicosia

  Merchant of Cyprus. His words mint coin.

  Pasquale Cicogna

  Candidate for Doge. One must hope him equal to the dignity of the office.

  Others

  Pope Sixtus V

  The former Cardinal Montalto. In three things is he abundant: coin, spies and ambition.

  Giovanni Prospero

  Count of Genoa. The poisoned dagger in the Pope’s hand.

  Borachio

  Servant to Prospero and villain of low mien.

  Salerio and Solanio

  Associates of Borachio. Friendship, loyalty and honour are virtues too costly for their purse.

  Scenes

  Prologue

  Venice, August 1585

  Act One

  Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, March 1585

  Interlude

  Rome, March 1585, the Villa Montalto

  Act Two

  London, April 1585

  Interlude

  Venice, April 1585

  Act Three

  The Road to Venice, June 1585

  Interlude

  Venice, June 1585

  Act Four

  Venice, July 1585

  Interlude

  Venice, August 1585

  Act Five

  Venice, August 1585

  Epilogue

  Venice, August 1585

  A Note to the Reader

  I have used the Gregorian Calendar throughout for consistency and to ease the understanding of the modern reader. I have sought to avoid anachronism in words and grammar, but have not tried to match all the usage of 1585. Thee and thou ring false and mannered to modern ears. I have taken advantage of our ignorance of certain events to fill them with my own imagination, but strived to keep with the historical record in all other things.

  This is not a work of history, but it could have been this way . . .

  Prologue

  Venice, August 1585

  Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;

  Into a thousand parts divide on man,

  And make imaginary puissance;

  Think when we talk of horses, that you see them

  Printing their proud hoofs i’ the receiving earth;

  For ’tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,

  Carry them here and there; jumping o’er times,

  Turning the accomplishment of many years

  Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,

  Admit me Chorus to this history;

  Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,

  Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

  What news on the Rialto?

  It is an ill-omened day that begins with a killing.

  Dawn in Rialto.

  The rising sun unpicks steep shadows in the narrow alleyways between the canals. It i
s quiet, save for the gentle knocking of boats as they bob against their moorings – and the sound of a man running.

  William hurtles along San Giovanni and over the narrow bridge towards Ponte Olio. He is breathing hard. Exhaustion and the terrors of the night have drawn tight lines around his dark eyes. Wise eyes, that make him appear older than his twenty-one years. William looks about for escape. He can feel, to his fury, his shoe coming loose. Ahead is a small square, quiet at this early hour.

  He darts into the shadow of the arches beside the little bridge. He presses up against the dark stone of one of the columns, struggling to control his breathing. The clattering of running feet can be heard approaching from the north. One man still pursuing after all these hours, he thinks. Then, the skittering of nails on stone, the sound of the dog’s claws. His mouth dries. He worms his foot deeper into his shoe. His eye falls upon a broken oar propped up against a wall. He reaches out and clutches it in front of him.

  The running feet slow. The dog can be heard panting and straining. There is no hiding from the dog even if he wanted to do so. He looks up at the tip of the broken oar, held before him in both hands like the cross in a procession.

  The dog rounds the corner; a heavy thunderbolt of dark flesh, red maw and teeth. William strikes. All his strength is focused on the tip of the broken oar as it crushes the dog’s back. The mastiff tumbles, mewling, dying. Its death-throes knock the oar from William’s hand. William stares at the ruin he has wrought. The dog’s master turns the corner, takes in the sight, and pulls back his cloak to bring a heavy flintlock pistol to bear. There is a grim squealing of metal on stone as the flint strikes. Its shriek is echoed inside William, he hears his efforts coming to nothing, reducing to a bloody death beneath an arch in Venice.

  Then nothing.

  No retort.

  The man looks at the misfiring pistol. William looks at his arms, flung out in front of him as if to catch the bullet. The two look up at each other and grin. The armed man recovers first. He lifts the gun above his head as a club but William is already upon him.

  There is a moment when William’s face and his assailant’s are only inches apart. William can smell the strong tang of garlick and sweat. The gun comes down on William’s back but there is no power in it. All the man’s strength has flowed out of him with the blood that gushes from the hole where William has put his dagger.

  The squealing of the dying dog continues as the man collapses to the ground, mouth gaping for air like a fish. William picks up the oar and brings merciful silence to the dog. As he casts away the bloody stave he throws a final glance at its carcass. The man he ignores. Anger has driven mercy from him.

  The square is still silent and empty as William scurries back through it and into the alley beyond.

  Cows and goats he had butchered before. His morning’s work adds a dog and a man to his tally. He thinks that his friend Oldcastle would approve of the experience he was gaining.

  ‘Treasure it all, my boy,’ Oldcastle would say with glass raised. ‘For it will cost you to acquire it.’

  It is indeed a bad world, Oldcastle, thinks William, as he races towards Cannaregio. Were I some Puritan weaver, I would sing psalms for it.

  The Campo San Bartolomeo is not empty. Early morning has begun to bring out those making their way to work. In balconies around the square women lay out linen for the first of the morning’s rays to catch. William slows to a walk. He does not want attention. He needs to catch his breath. The whoreson shoe is still slipping at his heel. Glancing back he sees two men enter the square a hundred yards behind him. Cloaks drawn tightly around them despite the beginning of the morning’s heat. Their eyes are intent on William as he weaves through the gathering crowds. Paces quicken.

  He pushes through a throng intent on their morning’s shopping. William’s head flicks back and forth like a bird’s. Where are his pursuers? Head down, cloak gathered about him to disguise his bloodstained front, he tries to shrink within the crowd. He has no thought other than reaching the other side of the Canal Grande. If he can lose himself in the crowd outside San Giacomo di Rialto, then he can double back along the western bank of the canal and from there make it back to Salarino and to Oldcastle.

  If only he can calm himself, he thinks, he can plan. He is momentarily distracted by the idea. It is not, he reflects, every day that one turns killer. To be calm is to be unnatural. He pushes towards the side of the canal where traghetti, the little canal boats, wait for custom. He raises his arm to signal to one and is drawn by the sight of his hand, smeared red from the morning’s work.

  He almost walks into her.

  He is still half-looking behind him and then, there she is. Isabella, standing before him. She looks as tired as he feels. He frowns to see her there. Her presence unexpected, her person exposed to the threats that follow him. He opens his mouth to warn her of the gathering dangers.

  William only half sees the glimmer of the metal as it whips towards him. He feels the stiletto blade slide through his cloak and clothes and the hot shot of pain. He looks down at the thin hand that holds the blade and then up at Isabella’s face. He is surprised by the fury he sees in the tight lines of her jaw and the teeth clenched between the beautiful lips. Why? Why is she angry with him when he is the one betrayed?

  Stumbling back he catches his foot on the raised stonework by the canal’s edge. He trips and staggers hard against a wooden railing. With a crack, sharp in the morning air, it gives way.

  Then he is falling into the Canal Grande below.

  Before the waters cover him, there is only time to wonder how things came to such a pass.

  Act One

  Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, March 1585

  My youth hath faulty wandered

  William didn’t know what he wanted from life, save that it wasn’t this.

  He twirled an apple across the countertop as he stared at the empty street, dark beneath grim, grey clouds. Fitful rain pattered against the window of the glove shop. It was just before midday. The apple spun haphazardly between his hands, as it had done for near half an hour. In front of him sat the open ledger with its neat rows of sums in William’s small, swift handwriting.

  ‘Is the new leather ready?’ William’s mother, Mary, called.

  ‘Cut and sorted,’ William replied without looking away from the window.

  Mary willed the weather to break before her son’s patience did. The long quiet of a Warwickshire winter did not suit William’s temper. It brought him out in mischief. So she feared it had already and she would task him with it.

  ‘The lace prepared?’ she asked.

  ‘Already sewn on.’

  ‘Both pairs?’ Mary could not keep the note of surprise from her voice. Her son had skilful hands but this was fast work indeed. William simply nodded without turning.

  Mary contemplated her son. He was twenty years old. Already married and with three children to show for it. He did not lack for ability. The Lord knew, the boy’s mind was swift enough. Too swift; it was never in one place long enough.

  ‘The accounts?’

  ‘Done.’

  The spinning of the apple paused momentarily. William turned the ledger so his mother might read it but did not trouble to look away from the bleak view beyond the window.

  ‘The Apsley brothers are charging too much for dye,’ said William. ‘Try Mathew Deller. I heard rumour he had bought at a good price.’

  Mary did not ask how William had come by this intelligence. William showed no particular interest in matters of business, yet he was a more reliable source of information than the town crier. Mary had a suspicion that in the days of the old Catholic rite one could have gone to confession only to find William emerging, telling you not to trouble yourself. He had confessed all your sins for you already.

  ‘William,’ Mary said.

  William stopped the apple’s spin. He turned to look at his mother over his shoulder. If he felt any trepidation at the stern note in her voice
he did not show it, only curiosity.

  ‘Look you at this,’ his mother said, ‘this, which I found within a package of gloves ready to be sent out. What means this?’

  The gift is small, the will is all

  Alexander Aspinall

  His mother eyed him over the top of the note.

  ‘Master Aspinall intends the gloves as a gift for his mistress,’ William said. ‘He asked if I could think of suitable words to accompany the gift.’ William was unable to keep a prideful face from his mother.

  ‘You have seen Master Aspinall’s mistress, I suppose?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ William answered, ‘and she is worth a better gift than a pair of gloves – even ours.’

  ‘No doubt that is why you find it wise to refer to yourself in the note?’

  ‘What? I do not –’

  ‘I am not a fool, William,’ she replied. ‘ “The Will is all”? You think I do not understand the reference? You think Master Aspinall will not?’

  Mary crumpled the note in his hand and tossed it on the counter. ‘Was this wise, William?’

  ‘Not wise but well enough.’ William straightened from his slouch to face his mother. ‘Who knows what opportunity may come?’

  A little grin broke into a broader smile. Quick hands smoothed the crumpled note.

  ‘Besides, Mother, you are more astute than Master Aspinall. If I have judged him rightly he will be too concerned with how the gift is received by the lady to absorb the subtleties of the rhyme.’

  His mother leaned back against the wall. Her eyes did not leave William for a hard minute. Perhaps the boy was right. Mary had thought before that her son was a shrewd judge of character, even if he could not control his own.