The Spy of Venice

by Benet Brandreth

  William understood Oldcastle’s mood. Yet there was a part of him that was pleased. Here was a city of wonders worth the strain of two short weeks play-acting more.

  Oldcastle mopped a dewy brow. ‘I don’t understand why we can’t just leave the damnable letters with that clerk and be done with it,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve told you why, Nick,’ answered William. ‘Sir Henry was insistent it be to the Doge and no other’s hand.’

  ‘We are bound to be discovered.’

  ‘We must try.’

  Impossible to convey to Oldcastle the same urgent charge that Sir Henry had laid on him. William would not say he had understood all that Sir Henry had spoken of during the long journey from England. The wars and rivalries of Europe were too great and too twisted for so brief an education. He understood this, that Sir Henry feared for England and placed his hopes in his embassy. That in these letters and their delivery Sir Henry believed lay the safety of many lives. Now William stood here for him and for those hopes. He wondered how much of Sir Henry’s thinking had turned on the character of the old doge and whether the new doge would prove as welcoming to England’s wooing. ‘Dead it is then,’ said Oldcastle.

  He let his head rest on the wall behind him.

  ‘I can’t even say it has been a good life, well lived,’ he said. ‘Hanged in Venice. Or worse, some torture they have learned of the Turk. Hot oil. Or more of that poisonous food they serve. A hundred dishes, each smaller than the last. Give me good capon.’

  Oldcastle pushed himself to his feet. ‘Come,’ he commanded. ‘Lead me to our lodgings. If I am to be killed for lying, let it be while I am drunk. The wine, at least, is good.’

  Behind them Borachio peeled himself away from the shadow of a column and followed.

  What is the city but the people?

  Venice thronged with people. William and Oldcastle pushed slowly through the narrow streets towards Rialto. Men of all colours and fashions of attire, speaking all the languages of Christendom and the barbarous tongues of lands beyond, were gathered there. Even to one such as Oldcastle, used to the bustle of London, the sight was worthy of comment.

  ‘God’s wounds, Will. Did you ever see such a body of men?’

  Oldcastle’s great girth made his passage through the crowds as slow and painful as the passing of a stone. Sweltering in the heat his face was fixed with a manic grin as he noddingly acknowledged the curses of those Venetians whose passage he obstructed. William did his best to travel in Oldcastle’s wake.

  ‘All the world is here,’ William agreed, dodging a scampering boy toting a crate of bottles.

  ‘Truly,’ Oldcastle said as he heaved himself through a gap between two groups of arguing merchants like a camel threading the eye of a needle. A moment later William and Oldcastle found themselves pressed back against the walls by a knot of liveried men, with, at their centre, a richly dressed man in a black gabardine coat. One of the Venetian senators, William surmised.

  ‘It is rather Orbis than Urbis forum,’ offered William from behind Oldcastle.

  ‘Is that Latin?’ said Oldcastle. ‘Are you being clever in Latin? I wish you wouldn’t.’

  Oldcastle’s mood was deteriorating with the press of bodies. The fixed grin beginning to take on the semblance of a snarl.

  ‘Your perpetual punning is draining to the soul, William,’ he said, ‘even in English.’

  In this manner did the pair make their way to the House of the White Lion.

  The osteria was a four-storeyed building of red plaster. It backed onto the Canal Grande. It was with some surprise that the owner, one Salarino, greeted Oldcastle and William on the street entrance. He was a short, plump man dressed in a loose linen shirt that failed to disguise the strain his flesh placed it under. Throughout his conversation his hands never ceased to tumble over each other, save when they sought to slick down the remaining thin strands of hair upon his head.

  ‘My lords, you are expected, yes, yes, but not in such few numbers and not by the street,’ he said. ‘Why did you not come by gondola?’

  He glanced unhappily down at William and Oldcastle’s legs, their already tattered weeds now muddied from the Venetian alleys.

  ‘Never mind the manner of our arrival, man,’ commanded Oldcastle. ‘Show us to our lodging.’

  William suppressed a smile as Oldcastle grew to his role as imperious knight, but still thought it wise to intervene.

  ‘Good Master Salarino,’ William said, ‘the manner of our arrival reflects the troubles of our journey. Spare us the need for explanation until such time as we have recovered ourselves. You say we are expected.’

  ‘Of course, letter of credit for your accommodation, Sir Henry, arrived some three weeks since,’ said Salarino. ‘As did some chests of clothing and other things. They are in the storeroom, safely locked. Your arrival, however, was not spoken of until a week hence.’

  ‘Circumstance accelerated our arrival even as it diminished our company,’ explained William.

  Salarino’s discomfort was manifest in an increased tumbling of his hands. His head bowed almost to his waist in a curve of abject embarrassment.

  ‘I am devastated to say that in consequence of your early arrival your suite is not yet prepared.’

  ‘What’s he say? Non what?’ Oldcastle tapped William impatiently on the shoulder.

  ‘That there is no room at the inn,’ William said.

  For the second time that day a Venetian witnessed the near miraculous sight of Oldcastle swelling with fury. The response of Venice to English displeasure was just as panicked on this occasion as the last.

  ‘Of course,’ said Salarino, ‘if you will grant me the space of a few days, my honoured lords, your rooms will be freed – freed and readied for your lodging to the finest standards. In the meantime, I would be pleased, pleased, yes, yes, to offer you my own quarters as if they were your own.’

  It was with relief that Salarino saw the translated words deflate the English knight before he burst.

  The two men were shown to a large room on the second floor of the osteria that looked out over the Canal Grande beyond. The shutters were closed against the heat of the day and there was a stale odour to the room. Oldcastle, worn from the climb to the second floor, sat heavily on the bed. A violent shriek rent the air and Oldcastle sprang back up. An outraged cat, nearly the thinner by a deathly margin, shot from its nest in the bed and out of the door. Oldcastle’s hands let go his breast where they had leaped and he breathed out heavily.

  ‘Lord, William, I think I’ve soiled myself,’ he said.

  William spoke quickly to Salarino to hide his laughter.

  ‘It will do, I suppose.’

  Apologies still flowing from his lips, the Venetian left the room. William turned to Oldcastle.

  ‘Well then, now what?’

  Defer no time; delays have dangerous ends

  Prospero sat behind a desk of gilded walnut, his feet flung carelessly up on the surface. He stared out of the windows that overlooked the Canal Grande. The room was dark compared to the brightness beyond. A small knife that he used to open letters spun in his hands and glimmered as the light caught it. Like a cat caught by the sight of a dancing string, Borachio found it hard to look anywhere else.

  ‘Well then, my lord, now what?’ he asked when he had made report of his intelligence. He shifted uncomfortably.

  ‘Must you make that sound?’ demanded Prospero.

  ‘My stomach plagues me,’ Borachio answered. ‘Has done this fortnight past. Damned Venetian food.’

  Prospero gestured to a glass set on the table. ‘Then take a little wine and be quiet, that I may think.’

  Prospero tapped the knife against his bloodless lips and smiled.

  ‘There are four objectives we must attend to, Borachio,’ said the Count. ‘Each demands of us a certain cunning if we are to achieve our goal. First, the destruction of Vittoria Accoramboni, who has given our master, the Pope, such cause for dislike. Her lodging i
s known to us but so is the Holy Father’s vengeful intent known to her. More than that, someone has given her warning that the time of the Pope’s revenge approaches. How we are known I cannot fathom but that we are is certain. She is now more strongly guarded than when first we came to Venice. How then to distract her watchful eye?

  ‘Second,’ he continued, ‘the destruction of the English fools. A simpler matter for they are guarded by nothing, unless their rags hide armour. By your good report, they lie open to our hand, and for at least the next fortnight till Venice has a doge. Time and enough when we need only close our fingers round them and they are gone.’

  Borachio broke in. ‘Tonight then? Let this be done at least.’

  Prospero’s eyes swung up, and he gave the tiniest shake of his head. ‘Where is the sport in that?’ he said.

  He looked again at the canal beyond and continued as if Borachio had not spoken.

  ‘Third, the obtaining of the letters from England to Venice. As you have taken pains to argue, surely these are held on the person of the English Ambassador. Or, as likely, his steward, Fallow. They lack the luggage to have hid them elsewhere. So then, take them before disposing of the men? A tricksy task to do unnoticed. Yet strike them down and in the general halloo that follows we may lose our chance to get the letters. Finally, what if we are wrong in our surmise and they do not have the letters? How to resolve all these?’

  Borachio stared at his master, suddenly concerned that Prospero required an answer of him. Prospero shook his head in resignation.

  ‘I shall set the first against the second to their mutual destruction. Whilst they are thus distracted we will have the opportunity for you to achieve the third, the purloining of the letters.’

  ‘I am to do it?’ asked Borachio. ‘Why me?’

  ‘Why?’ replied the Count. ‘Because of our fourth objective, Borachio. Which is that, throughout, I remain unharmed and happy. To which end let the Roman bitch and the English mastiff chew at each other for my amusement while you, my loyal hound, sniff out your way to those letters.’

  With these words Prospero turned to his desk and drew pen and paper to him. He began to write. The smile on his thin lips growing broader as he did so.

  When Borachio had departed with the letter, the Count remained in quiet contemplation for some time. There were yet some streaks of day in the west and he did not light the candles to fend off the dark. He often found the fading light of evening brought with it melancholy. A mood that had plagued him all his life. It was at its worst in Venice. Something about the city and its memories kindled it within him.

  He thought of the English embassy. The fat Ambassador was a fool but he rather liked the bastard son, Fallow. The lad had a sharper wit than his age might credit and saw with surprising wisdom. He rather wondered if this Fallow had not discerned his malign intent. If so, so much the better. Prospero preferred his prey to be aware they were hunted so that they might realise they struggled in vain to free themselves of the trap. As to his liking him, that little mattered. He’d killed even those he loved in his time. Maybe, this time, he would hold off his hand, he thought. After all, it was only the Ambassador himself that mattered.

  Prospero spent a moment thinking of that problem and then put it away in a part of his mind for later contemplation. What worried him most was not how to deal with the English embassy, it was that his scheming did not seem to lift his melancholy as it had always in the past. From this, in succession swifter than a line of kings, came thought of Isabella Lisarro. His melancholy mood darkened. Isabella was a symbol of too many things. He turned his mind from her to Vittoria Accoramboni.

  Prospero imagined Vittoria’s relief as she slew the English, thinking as she did so that she stopped the deadly hand cast against her. Imagine her gratitude to Prospero, who had showed her where the danger lay. How might such gratitude manifest itself in one so beautiful and so scant of moral qualm? How would her face change when she realised the person she drew close to was her true betrayer? Here, at last, were thoughts to distract him from his sadness. He stayed with them till darkness fell.

  As the evening wore down the streets of Venice thronged still with people. Truly, of that crowd it seemed as if one half were set in watch over the other half. From where she sat by the canal, with a basket of lace at her feet, the young girl rose and gathered her belongings tidily about her. She had made few sales that day and yet much profit from her toil. Her mistress, Isabella, would reward her. Slowly she threaded her way home taking with her the news that Prospero was returned to Venice.

  . . . three things that women highly hold in hate

  ‘We are safe here in Venice. That is why we came,’ Vittoria Accoramboni, the Duchess of Bracciano, said to Isabella as she waved away her servant.

  Isabella paced in front of the windows of the Duchess’s small study in the Ca’ Bracciano. When she had learned Prospero had business in Venice, Isabella had set her mind to fathom his purpose. A death, that was certain, but whose? Then she had heard of the arrival in Venice of the Duke and Duchess of Bracciano. Such scandal attended them. She had learned that Vittoria Accoramboni had fled with her new husband to Venice in fear of the Pope’s vengeance. There was her answer. Prospero had ever been the Cardinal Montalto’s man. In this only had he shown any constancy. Surely, if he served the Pope still, this woman and her husband were Prospero’s targets.

  Isabella had gone straight to Vittoria, relying on her fame as a courtesan to admit her entry. To Isabella’s frustration Vittoria had given little credence to her warnings. Now, with news of Prospero’s return to Venice, Isabella tried again.

  The serving-man carried the silver salver across to Isabella. She did not spare a glance for the gorgeous sweetmeats on offer. She too waved the man away. When they were alone again Isabella returned to her theme.

  ‘You are too confident of Venice,’ she said to Vittoria.

  ‘Should I not be?’ Vittoria asked. ‘In all Italy, in all the world, Venice is famous for three things: commerce, justice and the reach of the agents of the Signoria.’ She gave a little smile. ‘I am told the Signoria has more spies than the lagoon has fish. Yet we have had no word of danger. Save yours.’

  And is mine not enough, wondered Isabella.

  The Duchess smiled at her and gestured to the windows beyond.

  ‘The Pope is angry,’ said Vittoria, ‘little matter that his anger is misguided. Yet the Pope dare not offend Venice by threatening me, here in the city.’

  Isabella looked to the ceiling. Its central oval bore a depiction of the Last Judgment. If Isabella hoped to find in it some inspiration to persuade Vittoria Accoramboni of the threat, she did so in vain. When she lowered her gaze she saw the Duchess staring intently at her. The vast eyes were filled with curiosity.

  ‘Have you heard more than when you first came to me?’ she asked. ‘You have had some information that the Signoria has not?’

  Isabella came and sat by her. ‘None. I know only that Prospero is returned and in strange company. Oh, lady, believe me. If he is here then he brings death with him.’

  Vittoria leaned back to take a better view of Isabella.

  ‘I met your Count of Genoa once,’ Vittoria said. ‘In Rome. I do not think I told you this at our last meeting.’ She fanned herself a little. ‘A very handsome man.’

  Isabella waited to see what road the other woman travelled. Vittoria tapped the back of Isabella’s hand with her fan. ‘How long were you lovers?’

  Isabella stood. Her face was flushed with anger. ‘Forgive me if I speak hotly. My warning to you, I promise you this, is not born of heartbreak at a lover’s betrayal.’

  The Duchess held up her hands. ‘Do not be so proud, Isabella. Though I am younger than you I know something of love. Let me advise you. The stronger fuel we women are, the brighter burn men’s fires. I see your strength and do not wonder that the Count’s love flared in your presence. Is he all to blame that you were burned by the heat?’

  �
�I do not doubt that you know more of love than me, for all your youth,’ Isabella answered. ‘The courtesan does not advise the wife about love. Yet let me speak to what I do know. Your marriage sets the seal on the Pope’s humiliation. To see his nephew dead is one thing, to see his widow married to the man he thinks his nephew’s murderer, still another. He will hunt you, even here. You think you know Prospero? I have seen his secret heart, lady. It is black, lady, black and deadly.’

  ‘Forgive me, Isabella, but to hear you speak of this man, in these terms, you must have loved him dearly then to hate him so now.’

  Isabella turned to the window. How had she failed so completely in her task? This woman, whom she had hoped to frighten into safety, saw in Isabella’s passion only a misprised mirror of her own for her new husband. Vittoria thought Isabella spoke hotly because of love. How often we see in others only our own reflection.

  ‘I see you’ll not be persuaded,’ Isabella said turning back. She bowed to leave. ‘I have warned you. I can do no more if you are not willing.’

  ‘Wait, wait.’ The Duchess gestured for Isabella to sit. ‘I do not dismiss your talk of danger. You see, I am here surrounded by my husband’s men.’

  Vittoria spoke the word husband with relish. That status only so recently gained; no longer merely mistress.

  ‘Full of wise care for my safety is your counsel, Isabella.’ She caught the other woman’s hand. ‘I am to hold a banquet three days from now. Let us invite your demon lover and his companions. Then we may see them close and gauge them.’

  ‘Oh that is madness. Let him within a knife’s thrust of you?’ Isabella said. She pressed the young woman’s hand that had taken hers. ‘Prospero is not my lover. It’s not his love I tremble at.’

  Isabella saw the doubt in Vittoria’s look. ‘Foolish child, what must I say to have you trust me when I say he wishes you only ill?’

  ‘Dare you?’ Vittoria shouted and snatched her hand back.

  Isabella recoiled from the sudden show of rage.