The Spy of Venice

by Benet Brandreth

  ‘At least with the letters, you may say to our master that you have succeeded in some small part,’ said Borachio. ‘Without even that, why, I would not look for your welcome return to Rome.’

  Prospero said nothing. Instead, he walked round to his desk and opened a draw. He took out a small glass vial and threw it to Borachio. Prospero held out his hand.

  ‘The letters, Borachio,’ he said.

  Borachio was incapable of answering for a moment as he threw back his head and swallowed the contents of the vial. When he had tipped the last drops down his throat he threw the vial at the wall. It shattered with a loud report.

  ‘In good time, Count,’ Borachio said, ‘in good time. When I am certain that this antidote is sound physic for the poison you have fed me. Meanwhile, I shall go. I shall see if I might make good the harm your perverse delays have wrought.’

  When Borachio had left, Prospero sat behind his desk. He drew a sheet of paper from it. On it he wrote four names and then leaned back in his chair to think about how he might kill them all.

  You spend your passion on a misprised mood

  William stood in the shadow of evening by the church and watched Isabella. She had not seen him. He had not been sure it was her at first for she wore a veil. It was only as she lifted it to enter the Scuola di San Rocco that he had known it was her. He waited. When she left, he followed.

  He took his moment as she approached Campo San Toma.

  ‘Lady, a word,’ he said.

  Isabella turned at his voice.

  ‘Devil.’

  William strode towards her. Isabella backed away. Campo San Toma was quiet, empty, save for Isabella and him. William stopped and stood where he was.

  ‘Why? Why call me so?’ he asked.

  ‘How do you live?’ was all her answer.

  ‘Why did you try to kill me?’ he demanded.

  Their voices rose against each other’s questions. There is no passion like the convert’s; there is no anger like love turned to hate.

  ‘Are you the Count’s creature still?’ William said.

  ‘You ask that of me? You whom I saw carry out his commands?’

  ‘Saw me?’ William thrust out his arms and looked himself up and down. ‘Saw me?’

  ‘Saw you kill the Duchess of Bracciano,’ said Isabella.

  ‘She lives,’ protested William.

  ‘I saw you, knife at her throat, strike her. I saw her fall lifeless,’ Isabella insisted.

  ‘Fainted,’ William said. ‘She lives, God’s sake, lady, she lives.’

  ‘I know,’ said Isabella. ‘I did not say you were competent, only that you were an assassin.’

  Isabella thought back to the moment she heard the Duchess lived. So many questions had filled her mind. She had tried to see her but Vittoria Accoramboni would admit no one to her presence. The Duchess was caged by her own fear.

  ‘Now fled from Venice in fear of her life,’ said Isabella.

  ‘Wisely,’ replied William. ‘For there are killers on every corner, as well I know.’

  ‘Fled, in fear of her murderer’s return,’ Isabella said. She searched William’s face.

  ‘Murderer?’ He flung the title back at her. ‘How dare you? You. You who stabbed me?’

  ‘And missed. Small wonder, I aimed for your heart when you have none,’ Isabella said.

  The anger ran out of William.

  ‘Of all the wounds you have given me, that is the cruellest,’ he said. ‘You have seen my heart laid bare.’

  ‘A serpent heart, hid with flowering words,’ she said.

  William looked at the woman whom he had loved for her wit and her exquisite liveliness. She looked back with hate and fear of his hurt and the anger trembling in his hands, fear of her own misjudgment.

  As he looked at her, he realised she was looking past him. Something glittered in her eyes.

  He stepped aside only a moment before the sword thrust. It missed him by the intake of a breath. The old man, meeting air where he had thought to meet flesh, stumbled forward. William looked in astonishment at the mad old man from the Scuola. The one who had peevishly thrown the ring to him now angrily threw a sword at his back. William hammered his fist into the old man’s ribs as he staggered past. The air went out of Tintoretto and he collapsed to the ground, the sword clattering to the cobbles.

  ‘What are you doing?’ William shouted.

  He strode towards Tintoretto. The old man, winded, made no reply save to scramble back from the advance of the angry youth. William turned back.

  He stood still. Isabella held the old man’s sword before her. It was a flimsy thing, more ornament than use, yet its point was sharp. That point was levelled at his throat. William waited for the thrust.

  That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man, if with his tongue he cannot win a woman

  William stared at the point of the blade.

  ‘I am a fool and a liar, lady,’ he said, ‘but I am no murderer. I swear it. If words nor oaths move you, then think, what does my standing here before you mean if not my innocence?’

  William spoke slowly and carefully. He didn’t wish to startle Isabella or give her cause to ram her fears home.

  ‘I see anger and doubt and fear in you that mirrors my own,’ he said. ‘I think we two have been most grievously abused. The villains are known to you: that Count of Genoa, Prospero, and his man, Borachio.’

  ‘I saw you strike the Duchess,’ said Isabella. ‘I saw you order the old man thrown from the balcony.’

  ‘I held the Duchess but as a shield against her servants’ anger. I saw no other way to safety. Oh Isabella, I am a liar,’ said William again. ‘A liar and a fool but no assassin.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Isabella demanded. ‘How have you lied? How are you a fool?’

  ‘The old man and I are not the Ambassador of England and his man,’ confessed William. ‘We were of the ambassador’s party but what I told you in the Scuola was true, the embassy was set upon and all murdered. All save us two, poor players in his entourage. As I think now, that piteous massacre was at the order of Prospero and at the hand of his man Borachio. In fear of our lives we took on the mantles of Sir Henry and his steward. The which guise we have not been able to shake off since being taken into Prospero’s care. A wicked care. He smooths, deceives and cogs that he may murder. You, I think, know this better than most.’

  Her sword still did not strike, still did not waver. William spoke on, recounting what had passed until he came to the moment Oldcastle had been dragged into the room in the Ca’ Bracciano and his voice caught at the memory of his beaten friend.

  When he had recovered he said, ‘I think the Duchess would have killed us both. Except that at the deadly instant Borachio and his men took the opportunity to strike at her. I think they thought to kill us all and blame us for her death and that of her servants.’

  ‘I saw none of this,’ said Isabella.

  ‘What you saw was no more than my desperate escape from Borachio,’ William pleaded. ‘Saw her servants’ misguided attempt to rescue her from me when, in doing so, they allowed the true killers to escape. It was to you I fled.’

  William’s voice, already quiet, died to a whisper. ‘It was to you I fled. But I found Borachio’s men already there. I tried to draw them from you. I did –’ Again his voice caught at the memory. ‘I did grave things. I am not the same man that left your house. I do not think I am worse.’

  He faltered.

  ‘You struck at me in error,’ he said at last. ‘I should be angry that you did not first question me before you struck.’

  William’s voice rose. ‘I am angry. That is why I am a fool. Not only for being blind to how great the danger, for failing to unpick the knots of the trap sooner. I am a fool to be angry that in your passion you struck at me when it is that passion that I admire, adore, love. When the passion that led you to strike can only be a reflection of the passion I had aroused in you.’

  William touched his si
de. ‘I should be grateful for this cut.’

  He drew a great breath. ‘Your love to me is a religion. All else is error,’ he said. ‘I want only two things in this world. To return to that state of grace with you we had for one brief night.’

  The point of her blade did not falter. ‘The other?’ she asked.

  ‘Revenge against the author of my fall from that state of grace, of my companions’ murder and my friends’ hurt, Prospero.’

  Isabella’s eyes, that had not flickered from William’s during his confession, closed.

  ‘Is this the truth?’ she said.

  ‘This is the truth, Isabella Lisarro,’ William replied. ‘I swear it. If it is not believed, then strike. “It is annoying to be honest to no purpose.” ’

  Isabella, eyes still shut, smiled. ‘Catullus?’

  ‘Ovid,’ said William. ‘He also said, “I can neither live with you nor without you,” and finally, finally, with you I begin to understand what he meant.’

  She opened her eyes and William saw they were melting with tears.

  ‘Maybe my judgment is not all wrong,’ she said.

  So quiet were her words that William almost did not hear her.

  ‘You should not have lied to me,’ she said.

  William stayed silent. What denial could he make?

  ‘All that you say, I believe,’ Isabella said. ‘That Giovanni deceived me in you, as he deceived me in other things, is all too easily believed. I see his hand in all you speak of.’

  She let the sword’s point drop.

  ‘The love of wicked men converts to fear. The fear to hate. The hate to thoughts of deception and of death. True for him –’ She drew a great shuddering breath. ‘True for me.’

  Her voice trembled when she spoke again. ‘I saw you, as I thought, strike at Vittoria. The Lord knows she is no friend of mine, or any man’s friend. Yet I feared that history turned in its wheel and threw up another Prospero. I thought I saw her struck down and I-I feared for myself. I feared my own judgment was – wrong, stained. My fear blinded me. I should have thought. I should have thought. Instead I acted.’

  She looked at William through tearful eyes. ‘I am sorry. Forgive me.’

  ‘There is nothing to forgive,’ William replied. ‘Your own forgiveness cancels all grudges.’

  ‘I doubted you because I doubted myself. Never again,’ Isabella said.

  ‘What is your true name, liar?’ she asked.

  ‘It is William. But Shakespeare, not Fallow.’

  ‘Oh William,’ Isabella said, ‘we shall have such vengeance, you and I, that they will write plays about it till the end of time.’

  Interlude

  Venice, August 1585

  Trust not to rotten planks

  Prospero stood on the balcony overlooking the canal. The bells of Venice’s thousand churches pealed welcome for the new doge. His election finally made. Flags fluttered from every balcony. The boats on the canal were decked with flowers and ribbons. Below Prospero streamed people heading towards San Marco. Firecrackers spat and music filled the air in competition with the bells. Venice in celebration did not scant and scorned to speak of surfeit. For the coronation festivities no expense had been spared in the Count of Genoa’s clothing. The fine velvet of his doublet was studded with rare black pearls.

  ‘You still have the letters?’

  Prospero spoke over his shoulder to Borachio.

  Borachio, whose form had been ugly to begin with, had been made more hideous still by the great crusting scab across his nose. His voice was tortured by breath sent through a face still swollen, black and bruised.

  ‘And with me they will stay until our business is completed,’ he said.

  ‘Borachio,’ Prospero said and turned to face the man.

  ‘Can it be you still fear poison?’ the Count asked. ‘Did I not give you the antidote as I promised? Even though you failed me?’

  ‘I failed? I?’ Borachio shook his head. ‘The failure is yours. Yours alone.’

  He counted the failings on his fingers as he listed them. ‘The Duchess of Bracciano escaped. The reason for her flight and our part in it surely known to the Signoria. Yet you, unheedful of the danger, prepare to attend the Doge’s coronation. The English Ambassador fled too; whereto the Lord alone knows. Disaster and danger all about us when instead there might have been triumph and reward. Only the letters have we obtained. You gave me the antidote for their sake. For their sake alone and well I know it. All this because you must play your games.

  ‘Be assured,’ Borachio continued, ‘our master, the Pope, shall have full account of what has passed.’

  He finished with a long breath that crackled in his broken nose.

  ‘So many times have you promised to do so,’ Prospero said as he brushed past Borachio, ‘that I am only surprised it is not already done.’

  He walked towards the stairs to the lower levels of the palazzo. Borachio fell in behind him.

  ‘Oh I would have done,’ Borachio replied, ‘but that my men and I have, these three days past, been out looking for the Ambassador. All the while you sit here preening yourself in black velvet. When I come to make explanation I, at least, shall be able to say I did all I might.’

  ‘You cannot find him?’ Prospero asked.

  ‘Not for want of searching. Nor the woman, her maid or anyone else,’ Borachio said. ‘The task is made impossible. The city is set to merry-making. Men go masked for mischief. We search for the English Ambassador in vain where once we had him in our hands. We might have done all that was needed weeks past, but you must have your pleasures.’

  Prospero raised a finger but did not look back nor slow his pace.

  ‘You overreach yourself, Borachio. Such plain speaking in a servant is not admirable frankness but rank presumption.’

  ‘I am no servant of yours but of the Pope’s.’

  ‘And yet, you say, your master is still ignorant of your efforts,’ Prospero said over his shoulder as he turned the corner of the stairs.

  ‘Have you not been listening?’ Borachio said. ‘I tell you I have searched without rest for those whom you let escape.’ He grumbled on, ‘The Pope shall know of your failure.’

  In his anger he did not note how his words worked on Prospero, how the Count heard that Borachio had not yet betrayed him to the Pope, nor offered him valuable service in the matter of the English. Borachio thought himself safe because he held the letters. Such safety has the condemned man who waits behind thick walls and stout bars for the day of his execution.

  On the ground floor stood Borachio’s two men. Prospero nodded to them and walked to the end of the corridor. Borachio and his men followed. Prospero paused at the door to the storeroom.

  ‘I think all that poison has unsettled you, Borachio,’ he said. ‘What is it the Bible tells us, “A little wine for thy stomach’s sake”?’

  He pushed through the door.

  Behind him Borachio protested, ‘Our time is too short, Count, for wine.’ He did his best to feed as much contempt into the title as would fit.

  ‘My men and I will try the House of the White Lion again to see if the English Ambassador is returned. What effort will you make?’ he demanded.

  Within the storeroom Prospero had approached a barrel. He signalled to one of Borachio’s men, who levered it open. Prospero took a stone cup that sat nearby and dipped it in the open barrel. He offered the cup to Borachio. Borachio shook his head in bemusement that Prospero should think him so foolish as to accept a drink from the man who had so recently poisoned him.

  Prospero shrugged at Borachio and drank deeply from the cup.

  The Count of Genoa sighed with satisfaction. ‘Sweet Rhenish wine, with not a drop of allaying water in it. Of all pleasures, those that come in purest form are the best.’

  He set the cup down.

  ‘I cannot have you speak in such ungenerous terms about me to the Pope,’ he said. ‘While I had you by the stomach, so to speak, I was not worried. No
w?’

  Again Prospero gave a little shrug. Borachio began to feel the chill of the storeroom.

  ‘So selfish, Borachio, to deny me my little leash over you,’ the Count continued. ‘Fortunately, your self-regard is also your undoing. For while you watched your own food and drink you failed to watch your friends’.’

  The two men at Borachio’s side seized him. He looked in terror and astonishment at them. One looked ashamed. The other spoke in anger. ‘Fool. You let him snare us in his web.’

  Prospero took a step forward. ‘Poor Borachio,’ he said. ‘Always one step behind.’

  He held up the small glass vial of antidote in one hand.

  ‘No man can be the servant of two masters. This the Bible also tells us.’

  He reached out his other hand.

  ‘He’d hidden them where you thought he would, my lord,’ said one of the men as he placed into Prospero’s outstretched hand the sealed packet of letters stolen from the House of the White Lion.

  Prospero stuffed it away inside his doublet and patted the fabric behind which they now lay. ‘To enjoy later.’

  Borachio’s eyes stayed pinned on where his one defence now sat snug in Prospero’s bosom.

  Prospero placed the glass vial into the man’s hand and gestured again. ‘Now put him in the barrel.’

  ‘No!’ Borachio screamed. His voice echoed against the thick walls. ‘I can still be of use to you, my lord. Please, please.’

  His begging took on a fevered intensity as he was dragged towards the barrel. His feet scrabbled for purchase on the storeroom floor.

  ‘Why yes, Borachio, yes you can,’ said the Count. ‘You can be an entertainment.’

  The two men lifted the madly struggling man and tipped him head first into the barrel. Briefly, he got one hand free and pushed against the barrel’s edge. The butt of a knife smashed against his fingers and he was shoved in up to the waist. Wine sloshed out to make space for his body. More fountained out as his legs kicked and fluttered above the rim, but his arms could find no purchase against the barrel’s confining sides. After a minute more the movement stopped.