Feyra rushed to the bedside and dropped to her knees. The hand that she had held, the hand that wore the ring, that she had placed upon his chest with the other, had now fallen to his side. She took it up again, and held it so hard that the ring of the four horses she’d given him broke cleanly in two.
She climbed on top of him and opened his shirt, pressing her ear to his chest. There below the layers of muscle and bone and sinew, she felt a flutter, a tiny thing, like the first few beats of a new-birthed butterfly’s wings.
Somehow those vessels and chambers that Annibale had told her of, those valves and atria had come to life. But there was no science to this; this was a miracle of God. Now the tears came as she pressed her lips to the fluttering place, then moved up to his lips.
And as she kissed him for the first time, pressing her mouth to his, he opened his eyes.
PART VI
The Pale Horse
Chapter 46
Saint Mark’s Square had never been so filled with such a press of people, not even at Carnevale. This was the biggest naval muster the city had seen since the days of the Fourth Crusade, when the righteous and the ravenous went to feed on Constantinople. Even the preparations for Lepanto, a mere six years ago, had been nothing to this; but the machineries of war had sprung readily into wakefulness. ‘Heigh-ho, poor Venice,’ said Palladio aloud. ‘Here we go again.’
The Doge’s palace formed an apocalyptic background. The beautiful white frontage was now a charred ruin. Last week’s fire had turned it from the most beautiful smile of white teeth in the world to the blackened snaggletoothed grin of a pedlar.
Palladio shoved his way through whores taking sailors for a last jump before shipboard and wives pleading with their husbands not to go to war. On makeshift stages the players of the commedia dell’arte staged dramas featuring the evil Turk as antagonist, each infidel represented by a walnut-stained actor, with an outsize turban, hideous hooked nose and flowing beard.
Hundreds of citizens queued to go inside the Basilica. The fact that the church and the Saint and his sentinel horses had been untouched by the fire seemed nothing short of miraculous. Inside, in the incensed dark, they would pray to the Madonna of Nicopeia, an icon snatched from the Turks themselves, and ask her to keep the infidel from their door. Venice was a cauldron of gossip at the best of times, but in this past week it had boiled over with seething rumour; word that the Turks were poised to take the city had spread faster than the fire.
Palladio ignored the human drama; he was bound to see the Doge. He turned into the Palazzo Sansoviniano, which was, for the moment, serving as the ruler’s headquarters. The great painted chamber hummed like a hive, as powder monkeys and naval cadets with barely a whisker between them ran messages. The frescoed walls were obscured by great maps that had been torn from the Salle delle Mappa in the palace, some with pieces missing, some with charred edges, some with great cinder-edged bites taken out of them by the fire. And in the midst of it all, like the long silver needle in a compass, was the Doge.
If it were not for the Doge’s commanding tones Palladio would scarcely have recognized him. The long scarlet and white robes and the corno hat that he’d worn to the Redentore were gone. He wore the blue cloak and garter of a Sea Lord over silver half-armour; the white hair and beard had been closely trimmed since the consecration and he looked thirty years younger.
Today he was not Sebastiano Venier, ageing Doge of Venice, but Sebastiano Venier, Capitano Generale da Mar and Chief Admiral of the Venetian fleet in the new war against the Ottoman Turks.
When he tapped Venier on the arm and the Doge turned, he stared at Palladio blankly for an instant. Then the moment broke. ‘Palladio,’ he said. ‘What do you here?’
‘I would like to buy you a cup of wine, for luck.’
‘Now?’ The admiral opened his arms to indicate the mayhem around him.
‘It will take one quarter of the bells,’ said Palladio evenly, ‘and it may make all the difference to you succeeding in this onward action against the Turk.’ Palladio held the blue gaze long enough for the Doge to remember that it was Palladio who had brought Feyra to him. If the architect had something to say, perhaps it had better be listened to.
Sebastiano Venier sighed. ‘Very well.’
Outside in the melee, Palladio found the ombra cart, the wooden truck that hugged the shadow of the campanile as it moved around the square all day. The cart was doing a roaring trade today as the sailors spent their last few sequins on grog. Palladio exchanged two coins for two brimming cups and joined Venier on the dock. The two men sat on a gun carriage and watched the galleasses gather.
Sebastiano Venier looked out into the infinite blue with his weather-eye, as if he could see what lay ahead for him on those foreign seas. He shook his head a little. ‘I had not thought to go back out there,’ he said quietly. ‘After Lepanto, I thought I had done with the Turks. But, as it turns out, they had not done with me. Plague, Fire and now War and Death.’ He took a swallow of his wine. ‘What have you to tell me?’
Palladio took out a small quill box. ‘Have you parchment?’
Venier unfurled a map of the Straits of Patras and turned it over.
‘Good.’ The architect drew quickly and fluidly. ‘Combat, even at sea, is a matter of geometry. What I am drawing here is the architecture of battle, if you will. Now look. If you entice their galleys into this formation –’ he drew several small ovals ‘– then you have the advantage. Your new galleasses have superior firepower but greater bulk and move more slowly. Since they have side-mounted cannon, your best bet is to position two of them, in front of each main division –’ he drew fast to illustrate his point ‘– to prevent the Turks from sneaking in small boats and sapping, sabotaging or boarding our vessels. If you let the Ottomans make all the movement, then you are master of the game. Hold the line of the Christian ships at all costs.’
Venier looked hard at the diagram, then at Palladio. ‘How do you know this?’
Palladio shrugged. ‘I’m working on an illustrated edition of Polybius’s Histories, an examination of Roman battle formations. Just as classical forms have always informed my buildings, it occurred to me that you would do well to wage your campaign on the models of Hannibal and Scipio.’
Venier nodded, slowly, and blew on the drawing to dry it, his cheeks bulging like one of the four winds. ‘Thank you,’ he said simply. ‘I will heed what you say.’ He folded the drawing carefully and then spoke, as if he were trying to articulate something. ‘I do not hate them, you know.’ It was almost an apology.
For a moment, Palladio was at a loss.
‘The Turks. You know now my history from my niece’s child. Cecilia Baffo became a Muselmana and married Selim II of Constantinople. She changed her name to Nur Banu Sultan. From her son, this Murad III, who has sent these calamities upon our heads, will descend all succeeding Sultans; men whom, I hope, will foster peace between our nations.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Five centuries of bloodshed is enough.’
Palladio nodded and rose. ‘Varenta vu.’ He blessed the Admiral with a valediction as old as the city. ‘And may all the good fortune in the world sail with you.’
The architect began to walk away and then stopped, turned back. The Admiral still sat on the gun carriage, holding Palladio’s drawing in his hand and studying it carefully.
‘I do not hate the Turk either,’ Palladio said, thinking of Feyra. ‘But I love Venice more.’
Chapter 47
Feyra saw the architect once more, a month after the consecration of his church.
He came to the island when the doctor was still abed. Feyra greeted him alone but happy for Annibale was recovering day by day.
Until she saw Palladio the outside world had troubled her not at all. She had wondered when the island would be requisitioned once again by the state, but none of that mattered really. She and Annibale could go anywhere, just as she’d once dreamed, to any one of the great medical centres: Bologna, Salerno, Damascus,
Ascalon.
During her isolation, Feyra had not concerned herself with the war being waged in distant waters. She had played her part and delivered the warning to the Doge. She had seen the ships sail away, she had seen ships return, but knew nothing of the sequel to the events she had set in train. Venice and Constantinople could blast themselves to hell; none of it mattered now that Annibale would live.
But now, with the architect’s visit, she wondered about the outcome of the sea battle, and what had happened to the old man with the horizon in his eyes. It was high summer now, and she led Palladio to the sunken pillar on the green, under the mottled shade of the mulberry trees.
‘I am here, dear Feyra,’ he said, ‘besides my own account, on two commissions from the Doge.’
‘He is back then!’
‘Yes, and he has commanded me to tell you that the Ottomans have been vanquished once more. Due to your information, they had not even amassed in the straits before the Venetian fleet was upon them. The ships were smashed to tinder and by day’s end the sailors had to swim back to Constantinople like so many mackerel.’ He stopped himself, remembering to whom he spoke.
Feyra was silent, looking at her hands. Because of her warning, the blood of her people had been spilt. But you are a Venier, she thought suddenly. The Venetians are your people too. The shadows of the mulberry leaves dappled her palms like bruises.
‘I said two commissions, Feyra.’ The architect spoke to cheer her. ‘I mean, the second in a professional capacity. The Doge has granted you the island to run as a hospital.’ He smiled at her and spread his hands. ‘I am out of contract, you see. He said you might need an architect.’ He enjoyed the look of astonishment on her face.
‘But … but what of rebuilding the city?’
He shook his head. ‘I would be rebuilding the city by being here. I have fulfilled my contract with God, now I am anxious to sign one with man.’
As well as an isolation hospital, with Palladio’s new buildings and the Doge’s assistance, Feyra and Annibale were able to found a research infirmary. From time to time the Doge would summon Palladio’s doctor to attend him, always insisting that Annibale bring his female colleague. Annibale never actually saw his exalted patient on these occasions, leaving instead the two Veniers alone to forge the relationship they might once have had. While they talked, Annibale would walk about Giudecca, looking up, always, at Palladio’s church as he passed, but never going in.
He had a particular reason.
One day, during his convalesence, when he was well enough to take a turn about the green, Annibale and Feyra had stopped at the well of the stone lion to take a rest. As they leaned there in the summer sun, Feyra had caressed the lion’s stone mane. ‘Thank you,’ she said, quietly.
Annibale studied her. ‘You say my recovery was a miracle,’ he said. ‘But how do you account for the well miracles?’
‘The well miracles?’
‘Countless pilgrims who take water from holy wells, like the one of the old nunnery of Santa Croce, swear that the water protects them from the Plague. How do you account for it?’
Feyra thought of the well where her father lay, now interred for ever beneath a black star of marble set in the floor of Palladio’s church. She felt Annibale’s eyes upon her. ‘I think,’ she said carefully, ‘that in the last outbreak the water became infected. A rat, a coney, a cur, something fell into it. Some infected matter.’
‘And this time?’
She would not meet his eyes. ‘This time, I know it to be the case.’
‘Then why,’ he said, probing, ‘do the pilgrims not die from this water?’
She said nothing, and he took her hand. ‘So was I really a miracle?’
She smiled into the well. ‘Yes.’
‘Did you give me any of your linctus, your Teriaca, when I was sick unto death?’
She looked deeper into the depths of the shaft, peering for the circle of light that indicated the water. ‘No.’ She looked at him. He was stronger by the day, the hollows in his cheeks and beneath his eyes filling out, the sun tanning his sickroom pallor to a healthy hue. ‘Do you know why?’
‘Let me summarize my findings.’ He ticked the points off on his fingers. ‘You survived the Plague, but your father did not. You had discovered through your trials that the cases of full-blown Plague in the Tezon still died, but no more new cases developed in the families that you had dosed. Thus the Tezon emptied and the families went home. You gave your linctus to the gatekeeper’s son but not the gatekeeper. You gave a vial to the architect but not to me, and just now you suggested that there might be infected matter, perhaps even the body of a victim, in Saint Sebastian’s well.’
She did not breathe, nor look at him. She must keep looking down the well. ‘And what are your findings?’
He turned her to face him. ‘You were using variolation. You were inoculating your patients against the disease.’
She held his green gaze. ‘And you do not mind? We had an altercation about it, do you recall?’
‘A conversation,’ corrected Annibale, smiling.
‘An altercation,’ she said, but she smiled back.
‘I assumed that you placed a tiny amount of infected matter in your Teriaca.’
‘I did.’
‘And the rest of the ingredients?’
‘Will neither kill nor cure you.’ She quoted one of his favourite phrases back to him.
‘For the viable constituent, did you use blood or matter from the buboes?’
‘I took the matter, dried and ground.’
‘From your father?’
The smile died, and he could see that, for the moment, she was unable to speak.
‘He was the body in the well.’ It was not a question, and he abandoned the subject. ‘Your instincts were sound,’ he said gently. ‘I believe in these cases that to develop an immunity the sample must be taken from a source as close to the primary infection as possible.’ He looked out to sea, to the East. ‘Your father brought the disease here; perhaps he brought the remedy too.’ He looked sidelong at her. ‘For did not your Prophet say that God did not create a sickness in this world unless he produced the cure as well?’
Feyra recovered herself. ‘You have changed your mind upon the subject?’
Annibale sniffed. ‘Perhaps. I will grant that you had great success, but there is a deal more research to be done.’ He took her hands. ‘But now you have told me, you must tell the Consiglio della Sanita. The Doge has granted the island – more on your behalf than mine, I am sure – but we must play the game by the rules. His tenure as Doge will not last for ever, and he has suggested that we act within the constraints of Venetian law. The time has come to register Teriaca as an official medicine.’
Feyra was taken aback. ‘But the Consiglio will license it and take tithes from the sale.’
‘Let them. They can only make up the linctus to the specifications we give them. You will be called upon to list the ingredients.’
Feyra caught the note of mischief in Annibale’s voice. ‘All of them?’ she asked.
‘Nearly all.’
Feyra stood before the Tribunal of the Consiglio della Sanita.
Annibale went with her, but sat with the clerks on the long wooden benches at the back of the room. A rogue shaft of light picked Feyra out, vibrant in her green dress, beneath the vastness of the dark and gloomy frescoes. She was young, healthy and stood straight as a willow wand, in contrast to the three ancients sitting in judgement on her.
Annibale was not the only doctor present. Three bodies along from him sat Valnetti, huffing and puffing in his beak, his beady bird-like eye swivelling towards Annibale from time to time. Annibale studiously ignored him.
‘You know, I suppose,’ the first tribune addressed Feyra creakily, ‘that women are not allowed to practise medicine in the Republic of Venice?’
‘In that case, your honour,’ said Feyra, ‘I wonder that you took the trouble to summon me here.’
&nbs
p; Annibale smiled behind his new beak mask.
The second ancient spoke. ‘You have a sponsor here, with a medical licence ratified by the Consiglio?’
Annibale stood.
The third tribune spoke. ‘This woman works for you?’
‘She works with me.’
The first tribune, who had been sharpening his quill, cleared his throat. ‘That is enough of the pleasantries. Let us have it.’
Feyra spoke clearly, ‘Registration name: Teriaca.’ Her voice rang through the vast chamber, now almost without her native accent, as she listed the ingredients.
‘Rosemary and sage, rue, mint, lavender, calamus, nutmeg. Garlic, cinnamon and cloves. White vinegar, camphor. And greater and lesser wormwood.’
Valnetti stood, incensed, his cane dropping to the floor with a penetrating clatter. ‘That’s Four Thieves Vinegar!’ he spluttered. ‘There must be somewhat else in there! She has to list all the major ingredients. Read the statutes, Tribune!’
Annibale stood too. ‘As a matter of fact, Dottore Valnetti, there will always be variations in the decoction of medicine. The rules set it down that there may be various or additional ingredients in the amount of one hundredth. Read that statute, Tribune.’
‘Well,’ said the tribune to Feyra, ‘is there somewhat else in that bottle?’
Annibale looked from her to the little bottle on the tribunes’ desk, glowing green in the same shaft of light that lit Feyra. At the bottom of the bottle lay a little sediment, not more than a few particles of mortal dust. Annibale held his breath, then let it out in a rush as Feyra said calmly, ‘There are of course residual ingredients and impurities that occur in the decoction during the making. But they are certainly in the amount of less than one hundredth.’
Valnetti slammed from the room. The first tribune passed the document to the second, who signed it and passed it to the third, who looked up. ‘Have you the necessary ducat to register your medicine in the rolls?’
The Venetian Contract Page 31