by Anne Rice
The other three men-all young and somewhat pretty and most athletic, by the look of their beautifully muscled legs-were busy dancing in an artful circle, hands meeting in the center, as a small gathering of boys played the instruments whose pounding march we had heard on the roof.
All appeared somewhat greasy and stained from the feast. But not a member of the company lacked long thick fashionable hair, and ornate, heavily worked silk tunics and hose. There was no fire for heat, and indeed none of these men needed any such, and all were tricked out in velvet jackets with trimmings of powdered ermine or miniver or silver fox.
The wine was being slopped from the pitcher into the goblets by one who seemed quite unable to manage such a gesture. And the three who danced, though they had a courtly design to enact, were also roughhousing and shoving one another in some sort of deliberate mockery of the dance steps that all knew.
I saw at once that the servants had been dismissed. Several goblets had spilled. Tiny gnats, despite the winter, had congregated over the shiny half-eaten carcasses and the heaps of moist fruit.
A golden haze hung over the room which was the smoke from the tobacco of the men which they smoked in a variety of different pipes. The background of the tapestries was invariably a dark blue, and this gave the whole scene a warmth against which the rich varicolored clothes of the boy musicians and the dinner guests shone brilliantly.
Indeed, as we entered the smoky warmth of the room, I felt intoxicated by the atmosphere, and when my Master bid me sit down at one end of the table, I did so out of weakness, though I shrank from touching even the top of the table, let alone the edge of the various plates.
The red-faced, bawling merrymakers took no notice of us. The thumping din of the musicians was sufficient to render us invisible, because it overpowered the senses. But the men were far too drunk to have seen us in perfect silence. Indeed, my Master, after planting a kiss on my cheek, went to the very center of the table, to a space left there, presumably by one of those cavorting to the music, and he stepped over the padded bench and sat down.
Only then did the two men on either side of him, who had been shouting at one another adamantly about some point or other, take notice of this resplendent scarlet-clad guest.
My Master had let the hood of his cape fall, and his hair was wondrously shaped in its prodigious length. He looked the Christ again at the Last Supper with his lean nose and mild full mouth, and the blond hair parted so cleanly in the middle, and the whole mass of it alive from the damp of the night.
He looked from one to the other of these guests, and to my astonishment as I looked down the table at him, he plunged into their conversation, discussing with them the atrocities visited upon those Venetians left in Constantinople when the twenty-one-year-old Turk, Sultan Mehmet II, had conquered the city.
It seemed there was some argument as to how the Turks actually breached the sacred capital, and one man was saying that had not the Venetian ships sailed away from Constantinople, deserting her before the final days, the city might have been saved.
No chance at all, said the other, a robust red-haired man with seemingly golden eyes. What a beauty! If this was the rogue who misled Bianca, I could see why. Between red beard and mustache, his lips were a lush Cupid's bow, and his jaw had the strength of Michelangelo's superhuman marble figure.
"For forty-eight days, the cannons of the Turk had bombarded the walls of the city," he declared to his consort, "and eventually they broke through. What could be expected? Have you ever seen such guns?"
The other man, a very pretty dark-haired olive-skinned fellow with rounded cheeks very close to his small nose and large velvet black eyes, became furious and said that the Venetians had acted like cowards, and that their supported fleet could have stopped even the cannons if they had ever come. With his fist he rattled the plate in front of him. "Constantinople was abandoned!" he declared. "Venice and Genoa did not help her. The greatest empire on Earth was allowed on that horrible day to collapse."
"Not so," said my Master somewhat quietly, raising his eyebrows and tilting his head slightly to one side. His eyes swept slowly from one man to the other. "There were in fact many brave Venetians who came to the rescue of Constantinople. I think, and with reason, that even if the entire Venetian fleet had come, the Turks would have continued. It was the dream of the young Sultan Mehmet II to have Constantinople and he would never have stopped."
Oh, this was most interesting. I was ready for such a lesson in history. I had to hear and see this more clearly, so I jumped up and went round the table, pulling up a light cross-legged chair with a comfortable red leather sling seat, so that I might have a good vantage point on all of them. I put it at an angle so that I might better see the dancers, who even in their clumsiness made quite a picture, if only because of their long ornate sleeves flapping about and the slap of their jeweled slippers on the tile floor.
The red-haired one at table, tossing back his long richly curling mane, was most encouraged by my Master, and gave him a wild adoring look.
"Yes, yes, here is a man who knows what happened, and you lie, you fool," he said to the other man. "And you know the Genoese fought bravely, right to the end. Three ships were sent by the Pope; they broke through the blockade of the harbor, slipping right by the Sultan's evil castle of Rumeli Hisar. It was Giovanni Longo, and can you imagine the bravery?"
"Frankly, no!" said the black-haired one, leaning forward in front of my Master as if my Master were a statue.
"It was brave," said my Master casually. "Why do you say nonsense you don't believe? You know what had happened to the Venetian ships caught by the Sultan, come now."
"Yes, speak up on that. Would you have gone into that harbor?" demanded the red-haired Florentine. "You know what they did to the Venetian ships they caught six months before? They beheaded every man on board."
"Except the man in charge!" cried out a dancer who had turned to join the conversation, but went on so as not to lose his step. "They impaled him on a stake. This was Antonio Rizzo, one of the finest men there ever was." He went on dancing with an offhand contemptuous gesture over his shoulder. Then he slipped as he pivoted and almost fell. His dancing companions caught him.
The black-haired man at the table shook his head.
"If it had been a full Venetian fleet-," cried the black-haired man. "But you Florentines and you Venetians are all the same, treacherous, hedging your bets."
My Master laughed as he watched the man.
"Don't you laugh at me," declared the black-haired man. "You're a Venetian; I've seen you a thousand times, "you and that boy!"
He gestured to me. I looked at my Master. My Master only smiled. Then I heard him whisper distinctly to me, so that it struck my ear as if he were next to me rather than so many feet away. "Testimony of the dead, Amadeo."
The black-haired man picked up his goblet, slopped some wine down his throat and spilt as much down his pointed beard. "A whole city of conniving bastards!" he declared. "Good for one thing, and that's borrowing money at high interest when they spend everything they've got on fancy clothes."
"You should talk," said the red-haired one. "You look like a goddamned peacock. I ought to cut off your tail. Let's get back to Constantinople since you're so damned sure it could have been saved!"
"You are a damned Venetian yourself now."
"I'm a banker; I'm a man of responsibility," said the redhead. "I admire those who do well by me." He picked up his own goblet, but instead of drinking the wine, he threw it in the face of the blackhaired man.
My Master did not bother to lean back, so undoubtedly some of the wine spilled on him. He looked from one to the other of the ruddy sweating faces on either side of him.
"Giovanni Longo, one of the bravest Genoese ever to captain a ship, stayed in that city during the entire siege," cried the red-haired man. "That's courage. I'll put money on a man like that."
"I don't know why," cried the dancer again, the same one as before.<
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He broke from the circle long enough to declare, "He lost the battle, and besides, your Father had plenty enough sense not to bank on any of them."
"Don't you dare!" said the red-haired man. "Here's to Giovanni Longo and the Genoese who fought with him." He grabbed the pitcher, all but knocking it over, showered wine on his goblet and the table, then took a deep gulp. "And here's to my Father. May God have mercy on his immortal soul. Father, I have slain your enemies, and I'll slay those who make of ignorance a pastime."
He turned, jammed his elbow into my Master's clothes and said, "That boy of yours is a beauty. Don't be hasty. Think this over. How much?"
My Master burst out laughing more sweetly and naturally than I'd ever heard him laugh.
"Offer me something, something I might want," said my Master as he looked at me, with a secretive, glittering shift of his eyes.
It seemed every man in the room was taking my measure, and understand, these were not lovers of boys; these were merely Italians of their time, who, fathering children as was required of them and debauching women any chance they got, nevertheless appreciated a plump and juicy young man, the way that men now might appreciate a slice of golden toast heaped with sour cream and the finest blackest caviar.
I couldn't help but smile. Kill them, I thought, slaughter them. I felt fetching and even beautiful. Come on, somebody, tell me I make you think of Mercury chasing away the clouds in Botticelli's Primavera, but the red-haired man, fixing me with an impish playful glance, said:
"Ah, he is Verrocchio's David, the very model for the bronze statue. Don't try to tell me he is not. And immortal, ah, yes, I can see it, immortal. He shall never die." Again he lifted his goblet. Then he felt of the breast of his tunic, and pulled up out of the powdered ermine trim of his jacket a rich gold medallion with a table diamond of immense size. He ripped the chain right off his neck and extended this proudly to my Master, who watched it spin on the dangle in front of him as if it were an orb with which he was to be spellbound.
"For all of us," said the black-haired man, turning and looking hard at me. There was laughter from the others. The dancers cried, "Yes, and for me," "Unless I go second with him, nothing" and "Here, to go first, even before you."
This last was said to the red-haired man, but the jewel the dancer tossed at my Master, a carbuncle ring of some glittering purple stone, I didn't know.
"A sapphire," said my Master in a whisper, with a teasing looking to me. "Amadeo, you approve?"
The third dancer, a blond-haired man, somewhat shorter than anyone present and with a small hump on his left shoulder, broke free of the circle and came towards me. He took off all his rings, as if shearing himself of gloves, and tossed them all clattering at my feet.
"Smile sweetly on me, young god," he said, though he panted from the dance and the velvet collar was drenched. He wobbled on his feet and almost turned over but managed to make fan of it, twirling heavily back into his dance.
The music thumped on and on, as if the dancers thought it meet to drown out the very drunkenness of their Masters.
"Does anybody care about the siege of Constantinople?" asked my Master.
"Tell me what became of Giovanni Longo," I asked in a small voice.
All eyes were on me.
"It's the siege of... Amadeo, was it? ... Yes, Amadeo, that I have in mind!" cried the blond-haired dancer.
"By and by, Sir," I said. "But teach me some history."
"You little imp," said the black-haired man. "You don't even pick up his rings."
"My fingers are covered with rings," I said politely, which was true.
The red-haired man immediately went back into the battle. "Giovanni Longo stayed for forty days of bombardment. He fought all night when the Turk breached the walls. Nothing frightened him. He was carried to safety only because he was shot."
"And the guns, Sir?" I asked. "Were they so very big?"
"And I suppose you were there!" cried the black-haired man to the redhead, before the redhead could answer me.
"My Father was there!" said the redhead man. "And lived to tell it.
He was with the last ship that slipped out of the harbor with the Venetians, and before you speak, Sir, mind you, you don't speak ill of my Father or those Venetians. They carried the citizenry to safety, Sir, the battle was lost... "
"They deserted, you mean," said the black-haired man.
"I mean slipped out carrying the helpless refugees after the Turks had won. You call my Father a coward? You know no more about manners than you know about war. You're too stupid to fight with, and too drunk."
"Amen," said my Master.
"Tell him," said the red-haired man to my Master. "You, Marius De Romanus, you tell him." He took another slobbering gulp. "Tell him about the massacre, what happened. Tell him how Giovanni Longo fought on the walls until he was hit in the chest. Listen, you crackbrained fool!" he shouted at his friend. "Nobody knows more about all of it than Marius De Romanus. Sorcerers are clever, so says my whore, and here is to Bianca Solderini." He drained his glass.
"Your whore, Sir?" I demanded. "You say that of such a woman and here in the presence of drunken disrespectful men?"
They paid no mind to me, not the red-haired man, who was again draining his goblet, or the others.
The blond-haired dancer staggered over to me. "They're too drunk to remember you, beautiful boy," he said. "But not I."
"Sir, you stumble at your dance," I said. "Don't stumble in your rounds with me."
"You miserable little whelp," said the man, and fell towards me, losing his balance. I darted out of the chair to the right. He slipped over the chair and fell to the floor.
There was uproarious laughter from the others. The two remaining dancers gave up their patterned steps.
"Giovanni Longo was brave," my Master said calmly, surveying everything and then returning his cool glance to the red-haired man. "They were all brave. But nothing could save Byzantium. Her hour had come. Time had run out for the Emperors and chimney sweeps. And in the holocaust that followed, so much was irretrievably lost. Libraries by the hundreds were burnt. So many sacred texts with all their imponderable mysteries went up in smoke."
I backed away from the drunk attacker, who rolled over on the floor.
"You lousy little lapdog!" the sprawling man shouted at me. "Give me your hand, I tell you."
"Ah, but Sir," I said, "I think you want more than that."
"And I'll have it!" he said, but he only skidded and fell back down again with a miserable groan.
One of the other men at table-handsome but older, with long thick wavy gray hair and a beautifully lined face, a man who had been gorging himself in silence on a greasy joint of mutton-looked up at me over the joint and at the fallen, twisting man who struggled to get to his feet.
"Hmmm. So Goliath falls, little David," he said, smiling up at me. "Mind your tongue, little David, we are not all stupid giants, and your stones are not for throwing just yet."
I smiled back at him. "Your jest is as clumsy as your friend, Sir. As for my stones, as you put it, they'll stay right where they are in their pouch and wait for you to stumble in the way of your friend."
"Did you say the books, Sir," asked the red-haired man of Marius, completely oblivious to this little exchange. "The books were burnt in the fall of the greatest city in the world?"
"Yes, he cares about books, this fellow," said the black-haired man. "Sir, you better look to your little boy. He's a goner, the dance has changed. Tell him not to mock his elders."
The two dancers came towards me, both as drunk as the man who had fallen. They made to caress me, simultaneously becoming with great odoriferous and heavy breathing a beast with four arms.
"You smile at our friend rolling around on the ground?" one of them asked, sticking his knee between my legs.
I backed up, barely escaping the rude blow. "Seemed the kindest thing I could do," I answered. "Being that my worship was the cause of his fall. Don't p
lunge into such devotions, yourself, Sirs. I haven't the slightest inclination to answer your prayers."
My Master had risen.
"I tire of this," he said in a cold, clear voice that echoed through the tapestries off the walls. It had a chilling sound to it.
All looked at him, even the struggling man on the floor.
"Indeed!" said the black-haired man, looking up. "Marius De Romanus, is it? I've heard of you. I don't fear you."
"How merciful for you," said my Master in a whisper with a smile. He placed his hand on the man's head and the man whipped himself back and away, almost falling off the bench, but now he was most definitely afraid.
The dancers took their measure of my Master, no doubt trying to gauge whether he would be easy to overwhelm.
One of them turned on me again. "Prayers, Hell!" he said.
"Sir, mind my Master. You weary him, and in weariness he is a perfect crank." I snatched back my arm as he meant to take it.
I backed away even further, into the very midst of the boy musicians so that the music rose about me like a protective cloud.
I could see panic in their faces, yet they played all the faster, ignoring the sweat on their brows.
"Sweet, sweet, gentlemen," I said. "I like it. But play a requiem, if you will."
They gave me desperate glances but no other regard. The drum beat on and the pipe made its snaky melody and the room throbbed with the strumming of the lutes.
The blond-haired man on the floor screamed for help, as he absolutely couldn't get up, and the two dancers went to his aid, though one shot his watchful darts at me.
My Master looked down at the black-haired challenger and then pulled him straight up from the bench with one hand and went to kiss his neck. The man hung in my Master's grip. He froze like a small tender mammal in the teeth of a great beast, and I almost heard the great draught of blood run out of him as my Master's hair shivered and fell down to cover the fatal repast.