Exhausted, I curled up in the bottom of the boat, not caring what happened now. The spray and the cold stole my consciousness away, and I passed out, with Brother Guido’s kiss still printed on my lips.
Woke to a warm sun, a glassy sea reflecting the blue sky like a mirror. All around the boat were ships’ planks smashed to matchwood, and clothing curling and floating in the water like a laundry.
My oarsmen were both prone in their seats. For the second time in a day’s span I feared that my friend was lifeless. My heart quickened—no, Brother Guido lifted a hand to swat away an errant fly, then settled down again. Asleep. Exhausted. The Capitano, on the other hand, lay with his bloody mouth open, showing neither breath nor life.
Well.
That is how Principessa Chi-chi arrived in state to the southern kingdoms. Marooned in a curracle, with two unconscious men. Both bearded and battered and bruised and bloody. One as ugly as all seven sins, and dead as a Friday fish. The other as beautiful as the dawn and gloriously alive. As if the deceased Capitano had considered my wishes, my left foot was bound to Brother Guido’s right with a cuff-and-chain arrangement. I thought of searching our captor’s corpse for the key, but the thing caused me no discomfort, and I’d really rather not do an unpleasant job when I could wait for my friend to wake and get him to do it. I gazed on Brother Guido’s sleeping face and drank in his beauty, the memory of the night before beating in my temples and throat. I noticed, as an afterthought, that the gourd with the Primavera cartone in it still hung safely round his neck, but I wasn’t even sure I cared. Perhaps after last night we could forget the whole puzzle and settle down here where no one knew us, drink wine and eat olives and raise beautiful children. I gazed on their father’s face and enjoyed my fantasy.
At length I looked forward from the prow and saw a sight that pleased me almost as much. Curved and glittering as a necklace cast onto the sands was a perfect crescent of a bay. Above it sat a glowering blue mountain which smoked a little from its peak as if it were a new-made dish pulled lately from the oven. Little white houses huddled on the beach like pearls, and farther up the slopes, great palaces studded the hillsides like rubies.
“Naples,” said a voice from behind me.
Not Brother Guido’s voice. A voice of brine and barnacles.
Shit.
The Capitano was alive.
18
My expression of horror did not go unnoticed.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” said that graveled voice ironically as he straightened in his seat and spat a couple of teeth over the side. “And I expected at least a thank-you for saving your skin. I realize a kiss may be pushing it; ‘tis true I do not look my best, just now.”
I narrowed my eyes against the sun and him.
“Are you expecting me to believe that you saved us, through the goodness of your soul?”
He smiled a bloody toothless smile. His mouth resembled that of a monstrous toddler who had shed his first teeth but not yet gained his second. He spread his rough hands. “My motives are as lofty as my reward is like to be.”
I had to admire his honesty. “Ohhhhhhhhh. That’s it. You think you can get a good price for us with your patron . . . Don . . .” I struggled to recall the name.
“Ferrente,” he supplied. “Of course. Maybe not so much you, though I must say when you’re bathed and dressed you’ll have no peer. But your boyfriend . . . he’s a noble, so he said.”
“He is not my—” His smile widened and I stopped. “Well, you looked pretty cozy when I pulled you out of the drink.”
“What happened to your crew?” I said, anxious to deflect attention. I looked at Brother Guido, hoping for some support, but he slept on.
“Dead.”
“All of them?”
“I should think so. Ship went down, didn’t it? We got the only longboat.”
His callousness took even my breath away. “Don’t you care?”
“Not really.” He shrugged. “The rest of the fleet will be coming—they were too far behind us to be wrecked. And even if they were wrecked I could always pick up another crew. Especially in Naples. Busy seaport, you know. Busy.” He nodded, as if he were discussing the pleasant weather, not the death of his entire crew.
“Hang on. Are you saying they were alive on board, but then you left with us and let them go down with the ship?”
“They weren’t all alive. Some got washed over.”
“Yes, but . . .” I’m not sure why I was arguing with him. “Didn’t you want to bring your first mate, or that fellow that got crabs in Famagusta, or . . .”
“Berello and Cherretti? They’re not going to fetch me any bounty with Don Ferrente. A couple of poxy seamen. No, I’ve done better with the princeling and the mermaid, thank you very much.”
“So you left them to die?”
“Yes.” The Capitano collected my expression. “What do you care? You’re alive, aren’t you? All you knew of Berello was that he hit you round the head.”
“Yes, but . . . he’s your friend—was your friend, wasn’t he?”
“I’ve sailed with him these twenty years. But friends are a luxury for the rich. If Don Ferrente pays out, mayhap I’ll have the money to buy a few.”
“But . . .” I stopped. I looked at Brother Guido where he slept. Although I had barely known him twenty days, let alone twenty years, I knew that I would still never desert him. Yet it was useless to canvass such a subject with the Capitano. Instead, I resolved to find out what he knew. “These ships, brand-new, so many of them, what are they for? D’you know?”
He spat over the side with precision. “No. I was paid to bring a fleet of ‘em to Don Ferrente.”
“And that’s all you know?”
“They don’t pay me to know more. One thing I do know—less you’re told, less trouble you’re in.”
I couldn’t fault him there, but remained silent, frustrated that he could not tell me more of the purpose of the massive fleet. But while the Capitano and I had been busy with our discourse we had drifted much closer to shore, and I could see more detail of our destination—lemon trees with sun-bright fruits and dark glossy leaves, bundles of nets drying in the sun, glittering with dewdrop diamonds of water. I knew that we were no longer in immediate danger, for such an unscrupulous, single-minded man as the Capitano would not only keep us alive but actively protect us until he got his payday. I was almost enjoying myself—the day, and the view, lifted my spirits. But to be perfectly honest, the fire that really warmed my heart was the memory of the kiss I’d shared with Brother Guido. In that moment, even though I’d been on the point of death, I’d been happier than I’d ever been. I knew then that he did not entirely belong to God, not yet; that I had reason to hope. And I realized then, too, that I’d never known what it meant to really want one man and no other. I’m not saying I’ve never enjoyed my work—hell, a good swive is a good swive, but my heart had never been captured before. Last night, I thought my heart was about to stop beating forever. But actually, it had never really begun to beat, not till that moment. Now I was truly alive, and ready for anything that fate might bring, so long as we could be together.
I looked back to my sleeping love and suddenly felt afraid of his waking. Would he remember that he had kissed me? What would he say? As if I had bidden him, he stirred, groaned, and sat straight, blinking in the light. His eyes were as burning blue as the high curve of the sky, his pupils tiny pinpricks, and when he looked at me I knew he remembered because he was instantly scarlet, as if dipped in boiling oil. And I knew my face burned too.
The Capitano looked amused, missing nothing. “Good morrow, Brother,” he said with emphasis.
Brother Guido winced. “Where are we?”
The Capitano waved his hand. “Very nearly at the port of Naples. My hometown, actually. Now you’re awake, I thought I might prevail on you for a little rowing, since you gave such sterling strokes last night. I would’ve asked your girlfriend, but we were having such a pleasant chat
, and besides, she doesn’t look too strong. We’d have gone round in circles.”
I began to get the measure of the man. He was not without humor, but he was utterly without compassion. In his battered face his eyes were as little and cold as a fish’s. I felt a shiver despite the warm sun, for I knew that the moment we ceased to be of use to him, or if he did not get the expected price for us, our lives would be straw to him.
Brother Guido did not rise to the Capitano’s jibes; in fact, his face was inscrutable as he took up the oar and rowed silently. He said so little on the way into the bay—and then only inquiries as to direction or speed of his stroke, all addressed to the Capitano—that I knew something was badly amiss. He would neither address me nor look at me. I sighed. That was the worst of these religious types, and I should have expected it from him tenfold, knowing him as I did.
Guilt.
We pulled into the bay and I could see on closer inspection that Naples was a pretty shabby place close up—the houses not so white, the aspect not so fair. A dwarf trotted along the harbor and tied up our boat for us, biting the coin that the Capitano flipped him. The midget handed us all out of the boat, and as I set foot on land for the first time in days I could have dropped to the ground and kissed the filthy sand, so glad was I. In fact, I nearly did take a tumble, as my legs felt most peculiar—the ground underfoot felt insubstantial and uneven, and my body wavered as if it were still at sea. All this was not helped by the manacle on my left foot, for Brother Guido and I had to shuffle along with an odd gait, bound together in an awkward fashion as if we took part in a May Day caper. Yet my “friend” made no attempt to steady me; it was the Capitano who grasped my elbow. “Landsickness,” he said, “it’ll pass.” And together we made our way up the wharf into the town, and the streets closed around us.
I was struck by a wall of noise. I was confounded by a rainbow of colors. I breathed a hundred different smells. My senses were assaulted all at once. Naples was like nowhere I had ever been. I had stumbled into an Arabian bazaar.
From our first steps we were constantly harassed by Gypsies and locals alike. The streets were a casbah of yelling hawkers, selling their bright wares—food, beads, fishes. I even saw a collection of human skulls for sale, staring ghoulishly from their stall. I saw, too, shuffling lines of slaves manacled just like us, pretty girls in a string, or strong men, or house maids, all tied together like chattel. I knew this would be our fate if we did not please Don Ferrente. The place was lawless, noisy, confusing, menacing, a city of thieves. Yet we were embraced by the residents as they waved us into their shops and even homes. Once the Capitano led us into a dark doorway and bought a skin of wine for a coin. As we drank in turn (Brother Guido refused as I knew he would), I looked about me. The whole family, six of them and a babe, were there in one room—bed, earthpit, cooking pot, everything. ‘Twas so dingy it was a relief to get outside. “Do they all live there?” I bawled at the Capitano, above the noise of the populace. “Yes,” he bellowed. “It’s called a basso. The whole house in one chamber.”
Madonna. To cook, shit, fuck, and sleep in one room, with the babes looking on? Even Enna and I had lived better. I strove for something nice to say, remembering that he was a local. “Good wine though.”
The Capitano nodded. “White wine, called Lacrimae Christi, tears of Christ. The grapes are grown in the shade of the volcano”—he pointed up to the hunched blue mountain above us—“and the precious salts that come from its belly flavor the wine.” I had heard, of course, of such mountains that breathe fire and molten rocks. I cast a nervous glance at it, but the volcano was a sleeping dragon today, smoking calmly into the blue sky.
Down below, there was no such peace. There was noise everywhere; music could be heard constantly, in a cacophany of styles. With every step we heard the drone of popular songs, sung in nasal tones. One particular song I heard everywhere, perhaps a dozen times on our short journey.
Jesce, jesce, corna;
Ca mammata te scorna,
Te scorna ‘ncoppa lastrico,
Che fa lo figlio mascolo.
Peer out, peer out!
Put forth your horns!
At you your mother mocks and scorns;
Another son is on the stocks,
At you she scorns, At you she mocks.
The Neapolitan tongue was near incomprehensible to me, especially as ortolans and gaudy parrots screeched from the eaves in competition. The song seemed to be about snails—that couldn’t be right. “What are they singing about?” I asked our captor.
“Cuckold,” he said briefly. (I knew what that meant—it was when a woman fucks another man behind her husband’s back.) The Capitano made an odd symbol with his hand, with the first and little fingers extended like horns while the middle pair of fingers were held down by the thumb. “Here, we make the sign of the Devil’s horns. It wards off bad luck,” he said.
I began to look, and I saw the symbol being made everywhere, all around me—by the black-clad widows who sat three-deep on a crumbled wall, to the olive-eyed babes spinning their tops in the dust. I noticed Brother Guido saw it too, and he crossed himself in reply. Thus the sign of God negated the sign of the Devil, as if to ward off such heathen beliefs. I smiled at him but got nothing in return, so turned again to the Capitano. “Why, what bad luck are you expecting?”
“I’m hoping that when I marry, my wife won’t cuckold me.”
I could not wish him joy in any future union, but since Brother Guido was not speaking to me, I carried the conversation on. “You’re not married then?” said I, trying to sound surprised.
“No, but I’ll take you, honey tits, if you’re asking. If Don Ferrente doesn’t want to suck on them himself, that is.”
I shot him a look of loathing, sorry I had bothered to converse with him, but he merely laughed.
“Come on. You can’t hate me that much. You woke first in the boat, did you not? You could have tipped me over the side while I slumbered, and been rid of me for good.”
Damnation, that’s what I should have done! Fuck, fuck, fuck!
He saw my expression and his grin widened. “Why didn’t you?”
“Because I didn’t think of it in time,” I admitted stiffly.
He laughed again. “Well, at least you’re honest.”
I looked to Brother Guido to see how he would react to this exchange—the casual contemplation of murder. But he had drawn into his shell as completely as the snail of the song. I saw him telling his rosary beads through busy fingers as we walked, his mouth moving constantly in prayer. Huh, I thought. Probably trying to pray the taste of me away from his lips. Good luck. A kiss from Chi-chi is not so easily forgot. I felt sad though—in our time of danger we had never been closer, and now, even though we were shackled together, we could not have been further apart.
We pushed our way through the maelstrom of hurrying citizens and I reflected on how little the people were. They seemed no bigger than the midget on the wharf who had tied our boat, and were swarthy and saturnine, not like the tall, willowy blondes of the north. It was hard to see how the pearl-pale lady from the Primavera would find a home among such a people; she was as different from them as a greyhound from a pack of curs. Like myself. I looked down on them, in many senses.
Yet the place was clearly a mass of contradictions. For as many walls that were daubed with crude drawings like a cave of the ancients or painted with slogans that even made me blanch, there were niches with Madonnas and saints everywhere. At every street corner was a shrine of devotion, each clean and well respected, with well-tended flowers or neatly trimmed candles. I noticed, too, that among the varied merchandise on sale in the streets, the apothecary drugs and the body parts and the stolen wares, were hundreds of scenes of the Nativity, carved from wood, some painted, some plain, and all exquisite, clearly a local specialty. Naples was a place of contrasts, a city crammed with the filth and the faith in equal measure. Like Brother Guido and me: the faithful and the filthy, joined by acc
ident, and rubbing along together as best we could.
Soon we began to climb a hill away from the harbor and I noticed, as in Florence, that when the ground rises, the ruffians fall away and the district gets a little nicer. The heat, however, was oppressive when we climbed out of the shade of the streets and the market awnings. I began to sweat freely. Now I could see our destination looming over the town—a red castle, grand and spreading, with twin turreted towers joined by a grand white marble arch. As we drew closer, I knew it was time for action—we would never get out of this pass if Brother Guido remained as mum as an oyster. As we reached the castle gates, and the Capitano stepped forward to bribe the guards that crossed their halberds in our faces, I pinched his arm. At last he looked at me, but like a mortal who looked upon the demon who had damned him.
The Botticelli Secret Page 14