He lifted his head a little but pulled it back down when he saw an elderly maid in her nightdress standing there. He watched in fascination as she clasped a hand tightly to her breast and seemed to be praying to the moon. It took him a moment to understand, she was probably praying for love. And he remembered a story he had been told about a young nobleman who had been taken captive by an old maid and chained up in her attic bedchamber, where she had pleasured herself with him three or four times a day until the young man was nothing but a wasted shell.
He lay down lower on the balcony stones and did not move until she, too, had returned inside the building and closed the door. He climbed to his feet and exhaled. The night was certainly not going as he had planned.
He turned his head as a cloud moved across the face of the moon and he smelled rain coming. That was all he needed. He climbed back over the balcony, only skinning himself a little this time and had both hands on the rope, when he heard the balcony door behind him open.
“Merde,” he muttered. He hoped it wasn’t her father this time, for he was hanging there defencelessly. He leaned in close to the wall hoping his black clothes would shield him, but his foot suddenly slipped on the stonework. He scrabbled frantically before regaining his footing.
“Who is that?” an alarmed voice behind him asked.
He turned his head around awkwardly to see who it was and heard Giulietta ask, “Romeo? Is that you?”
He smiled. “Giulietta,” he said, trying to swivel around without falling from the rope.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
He caught a glimpse of her in her nightgown. A green silk dress with a red ribbon at the neck that would surely come undone with the most gentle of tugs. His feet slipped again and he scrabbled once more for a footing.
“I had to see you,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”
“I’ve been thinking of you ever since the ball,” she said.
He felt the pressure in his pants increasing. “And I of you.”
“But it is dangerous to come here. If my father or his men catch you they will seek to kill you.”
“It was worth the risk,” he said. “I have come to ask you a question.”
“And my answer is yes, whatever the question is,” she said.
“Anything?” he asked.
“Yes, anything,” she answered in a cheeky voice. “Ask me to kiss you and I will. Ask me to open my bodice to you and I will. Ask me to touch you in intimate places and I will.”
Romeo scrabbled madly at the slippery stones again, coming very close to falling into the dark water below. “I will ask you all that and more,” he said, “but first I will ask if you will run away with me.”
Giulietta was quiet a moment, as if weighing up the question. “To marry me?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I want to live with you as man and wife somewhere where nobody knows us as Montecchi or Cappalletti.”
“Then yes,” she said unhesitatingly.
“We shall have only ourselves as company,” he said.
“Except for the servants and retainers we hire,” she said.
“We shall not be wealthy,” he said.
“Except for what jewels I steal away with,” she said.
“But we shall be happy.”
“No one will have ever known such happiness,” she replied.
Romeo turned his body around on the rope and saw Giulietta leaning over the balcony towards him, her nightdress surely a little more opened than it had been a moment before.
“I will make the plans and send a secret message to you,” he said.
“What will it say?”
“I will use the word moonlight in it,” he said.
“And I will wait for it and think of you in the moonlight…” She reached out one hand to him and he took one hand off the rope and reached out to her. “…whenever I touch myself,” she said.
Romeo’s feet slipped again and his single hand was not enough to stop him from falling. But as he fell she called his name and leaned out over the balcony. His hand caught hers and for a moment they were both falling. But then it was as if the moonlight solidified around them to hold them in the air, and the waters of the canal beneath them rose up, lifting the gondola to catch Romeo. Then their hands parted and Giulietta was standing on the balcony, breathing heavily and her knees trembling, and Romeo was lying in the boat breathless, drifting away on the current of the resettling waters.
XXX
ELSEWHERE IN THE FLOATING CITY
“It’s a catastrophe!” said Signor Orseolo, throwing his hands into the air. “There must be something you can do to save me.”
The two Seers known as the Winter Seers had come at his summoning, for as one of the richest merchants in the city he was a benefactor of anyone who lived off the city’s purse. They arrived, hand in hand, to find him standing ankle-deep in water in the ground floor of his Palazzo. The two Seers looked at each other uneasily. They had heard that some of the poorer parts of the city were experiencing flooding, such as the tradesmen’s ghetto and the immigrant islands – but there had not been any sign that the richer parts of the city were being affected.
“You must have a spell to hold back the waters,” Signor Orseolo said, pleading with them. There were thick carpets underfoot that squelched like seaweed when they stepped on them. They would be smelly ruins when they were retrieved.
“Of course, of course,” said the female Seer, placing her free hand on Signor Orseolo’s shoulder. “We shall do what we can.”
“Is it an Othmen attack?” Signor Orseolo asked, worriedly.
“No, no,” said the male Seer. “There has been an unseasonably high tide that is affecting parts of the city.” He looked to his wife to confirm the lie. She nodded her head. “We can of course turn back the waters here. It is a minor thing.”
Signor Orseolo seemed pleased to hear that. The female Seer smiled. But her husband could see it was strained. They could not be doing this for long. The city was starting to sink and they were too few to sustain the energies needed to keep it afloat. But they could at least hold back the fear.
“Come,” said the female Seer, taking Signor Orseolo by the arm. “Return to the upper floors and leave us to our work. We shall not take long.”
He looked back at them with a look on his face that clearly showed he wanted to stay and watch, but the male Seer shook his head just a little. Signor Orseolo then bowed to them both and squelched his way across the room to the marble staircase.
After he had gone the male Seer led his wife across to a large candlestick standing on the floor and reaching head height, and brought it across to the centre of the room. “Fire,” he said.
“Water,” said his wife, pointing at their feet. He smiled and reached into his garment pockets with his free hand. He brought out a handful of dirt and sprinkled it at their feet. “Earth,” he said.
“And air,” said his wife, blowing hard on the candles. Instead of extinguishing, they glowed brighter, and then she took the candlestick holder and plunged it into the water at their feet. It entered the water with a slight hiss, but the candles kept burning.
She looked up into her husband’s eyes. He was ready. But before they even began the incantation the waters started draining out of the room. The Seers looked at each other in confusion, then she was pulling her husband to the doorway. They hurried out, watching the water run up the few stairs there, across the piazza and into the canal.
They both turned their heads, this way and that, looking into the darkness. “There,” she said. Her husband spun to look. He could see the fading glow of silver light, over the rooftops, like concentrated moonlight, barely half a league away.
“It is them,” she said. “It has to be.”
“We must find them,” said her husband. “They are more powerful than we dared hope.”
“Hurry,” she said, but he was already leading her across to the canal edge where their boat remained. They
stepped in quickly and told their oarsman to make haste in the direction of the fading glow. He pushed the gondola off at once, the waters swirling around them, still running out from the palazzo, drawing them along a little. It was as if the waters were heading in the direction of the glow as well.
The male Seer was the first to lower his gaze and note the strange behaviour of the water. Thus he was the first one to see the large eyes rise from the dark water beside them, followed by the upper body of the Othmen creature.
XXXI
THE STORY OF DISDEMONA
Otello was in a foul mood, his captain could see, and he suspected it was going to get fouler before the night was done. He had already had a report from the guardsman who had been sent to the tavern to find the man who had accompanied the scribe to ask about his wife. He told how he had been attacked outside the tavern and left unconscious. The guardsman described how he had fought bravely to defend himself against a gang that had dropped from the rooftops and managed to snatch the mask off one of them before they overwhelmed him. He produced the cracked and broken mask as evidence.
Then Otello had inspected the dead men found in a building, with the same masks. He wanted answers of his men that none could give him.
“Who were these masked men? Why could no one identify any of them? If they had already assassinated one of the Council of Ten and attacked one of his guardsmen, who had killed them?”
And over and over in his own mind, and what did his wife Disdemona have to do with it all?
The only clue they had been able to find was a tattoo on one of the dead men’s arms. The mark of the Guild, the society that serviced the apothecaries of the city and traded in secret potions and rare herbs and metals, and smuggled as much as members of the thieves’ quarter.
“We are going to the island of the Guild,” he ordered. “Gather men and gather arms.”
His men were not happy with the order. The Guild were dangerous men, possessed of charms that could protect them from ordinary weapons. They could dispense invisible clouds of poisons that could make a man fall asleep and wake up an old man. Or he might go blind on the spot. Or his manhood might turn black and fall off.
But they were more afraid of Otello’s temper. Grudgingly they boarded several dark gondolas and set off across the canals. Captain Casio led in one boat and Otello in another, with Ensign Ipato at his ear.
“Is it wise to bring Captain Casio on this trip, my lord?” he whispered into his general’s ear.
“Why?”
“A difficult choice, I admit,” said the ensign. “But I have heard that he has contacts in the Guild. Perhaps he knows more than he is allowing.”
“Do you think I should have left him behind?”
The ensign sucked in his teeth. “Also a difficult decision. I think you might watch him more carefully to discover if he is with you or not with you.”
Otello said nothing.
“Tell me, my lord, did he ask you whether he should stay behind and guard your lady?”
Otello was slow to answer. “He did.”
The ensign nodded. “And we are approaching a dangerous quarter that might be a trap set against us?”
“I have considered the possibility.”
The ensign nodded again and said in a lower voice, “It is just a passing thought, my lord, but one that might need to be spoken – and then forgotten if you thought it of no worth – but who would gain if you were killed in such an ambush?”
“Who indeed?” asked the Moor in a bear’s growl of a voice.
“It is not for me to say,” said the ensign. “Forget I had ever spoken.” He took a half step away and then added, “But I do have a feeling that we are suddenly pawns on a large chessboard, being played.”
The Moor said nothing else and did not turn his head away from the Guild island ahead of them in the darkness, except to once or twice look across at the boat beside them with his captain in it.
The boats reached the island with difficulty as the waters seemed to be running strangely against them. They tied up silently at a partially submerged landing and the men climbed out and made their way up the few steps to assemble in the dark shadow of some building. “No noise,” hissed Otello. “Captain, you will lead.”
The man bowed his acknowledgment and, bent low, he led the men in single file along an alleyway, headed towards a house that had previously been identified as a haven for Guildsmen who needed to stay hidden. But tonight they would be found.
The captain reached the house and Otello could see there was a light inside, indicating somebody was still awake. The captain signalled to the men to form a half-circle around the door and be ready. He then stepped up close and rapped three times, then once, then two times on the door. There was no response from inside. Otello felt uneasy and glanced around at the buildings that surrounded them. A perfect place for crossbowmen to shoot at them.
Suddenly a small barred window in the door slid open and a man hissed something in a tongue Otello did not understand. The captain replied – a single word – and the man slammed the window shut and called out to those inside.
“Break it in!” commanded Otello. Two of his men stepped forward with axes, but Otello said, “No. Too slow,” as he snatched one of the axes and jammed it under the base of the door and prised. The door rose up and lifted off its hinges, tumbling inside, the lock side still fastened to the door jamb.
The Moor led his men into the house and received a crossbow arrow directly into his chest for his troubles. The very tip of it pierced his armour and reached his chest, but no more. A little higher and it might have hit him in the neck. “Take them alive,” he roared and was in the thick of it with his men, tumbling over beds and kicking in doors and wrestling men to the ground.
They rounded up six in total, including the man who had been armed with the crossbow. They sat sullenly on the floor, their arms bound behind their backs. Otello stood before them and said, “We have only come for information.”
“They will die before they give up any information,” the captain said. “They have sworn an oath on it.”
Otello turned and glared at him. “You do not need to remind them of it,” he said. “They can make up their own minds.” Then he turned to them. “I do not want you to betray your guild. I just want you to tell me about the men who wear these.” And he cast one of the white grinning masks to the floor in front of them. He threw a gold ducat next to it. “Consider it a business transaction.”
The guildsmen all stared at the mask and Otello could see recognition in their eyes. One of the men spat on the mask though, showing there was clearly no love between the Guild and the masked assassins. Or perhaps that was just what he wanted them to believe.
“Can anyone tell me where I might find the men who wear this mask?” Otello asked.
None of the men said anything. Otello stared at them and then said to his men, “Search the house for illegal goods.”
His men went back to turning over furniture and opening cupboards and came back with an array of vials and bags and several intricate small brass machines.
“What are these?” the ensign asked.
“Othmen devices,” said Otello. “Used by Othmen spies.”
“Or just those that trade with the Othmen perhaps,” said the captain.
Otello turned to him and indicated that he should remain silent. The captain was holding one of the Othmen brass objects and he offered it to Otello. He took it and turned it over in his hands. It seemed to be a ball of intricate cogs and hidden blades. He pressed a button on it and curved blades rose out of the sphere.
“Dangerous,” he said.
“It might be poisoned,” cautioned his ensign.
Otello dropped it at his feet by the prisoners and watched as one of the men pulled his legs a little away from it.
“But I suspect these vials are more dangerous,” said the ensign. He knelt down beside the six captured men and said, “I have heard it said that the Guild can prov
ide a potion that will make a woman lose her head and give her body and heart to the man who administers the potion. Is that true?”
None of the men looked up.
“I have heard it is as common as the poisons and drugs you sell to make a man lose his mind,” the ensign said.
Still none of the men looked up.
“I have heard it said–” began the ensign.
“They will not talk,” interrupted the captain.
Otello turned on him. “I would rather hear that from their lips than yours,” he said gruffly.
“I am just telling what I know,” he said.
“Again, I would rather hear what they know.”
His captain bowed and stepped back. Otello stood motionless but the muscles on his neck twitched violently. He had a sour taste in his mouth as if there really were poisons in the air that were trying to infect him.
“We have learned all we will learn here tonight,” he said finally.
“What of these men?” asked his captain.
“Leave them.” He led his men to the doorway, not noticing the ensign slip the vials into his tunic. He paused as he stepped over the broken door and glanced back at the six men tied up on the floor, still not looking up to meet his eyes. They knew something he needed to know. He was certain of it. But if they would not tell him, he would leave a message for the Guild of the price of keeping secrets. “Burn it,” he said, thinking he had learned quite a lot this night already, and strode down to their waiting boats.
XXXII
ELSEWHERE IN THE FLOATING CITY
The night was overcast with the moon only occasionally finding a hole to shine down on the world of mortal men below and what it saw may have scared it into hiding again. For along the Grand Canal in the very centre of the Floating City a tremendous beast had risen from the waters and was engaged in mighty combat with the Winter Seers.
The Floating City Page 11