“Here”—Signor Cristoforo pointed with a rough blunt finger—“this figure is known as the compass rose, so called because the many-petaled appearance of the cardinal directions gives a floral impression. We may see the well-known directions of the four winds—north at the top, south at the bottom, west to our right, and east to our left.”
So far so good. “But what of all the others in between?”
“These finer directions denote the divisions between the winds—for example, between ‘north’ and ‘east’ are the following directions.”
North
North by east
Northwest east
Northeast by north
Northeast
Northeast by east
East northeast
East by north
East.
“You see?”
No. “Yes.”
“Between east and south the same, and on around the wheel, back to north. In ancient times the Romans made do with just twelve divisio at thirty degrees each, a perilous practice indeed. Now we have the full thirty-two divisions, and by reference to the gradians—the subdivisions between each point—we may know with great accuracy our position at sea, a method known as ‘dead reckoning.’ This very compass,” he went on with a bashful countenance, “was transcribed by myself and my brother at our map shop in Genoa, down by the old harbor.” He had left the room and gone home; I could see his eyes were wistful for his city, and his voice was full of pride and homesickness.
I softened toward him, now that I knew he missed a part of his heart too. “Did your brother teach you to love the sea?”
“Him, and my father-in-law too.”
“You’re married?” I was too shocked to hide the surprise from my voice. Ugly men were married aplenty, but usually with a fortune to soften their looks. But ill-favored young tutors with little wealth and fewer prospects? Surprising. Perhaps things were handled differently in Genoa.
“Yes—to a lady named Filipa, who lives in the Azores.” (I did not know where this is and still don’t.) “With a son, just lately born, whom I have not yet seen. He is named Diego.” His eyes turned to glass briefly, wet with tears, and I was mortified: I had been so busy musing on my own personal tragedy that I had not thought to ask what a young man did so far away from his family. “Now,” he said, recollecting himself swiftly, and carrying forth with the task in hand. “Shall we see if you can remember the directions between north and east?”
Shit. My mind was anywhere but on my lessons, but my tutor did not notice anything amiss. He lifted the astrolabe and the compass drawing rolled up with a snap, leaving me blind. I just about remembered north and then was stuck, but by gently prompting me, the sailor gently led me through all the directions. ‘Twas easy when you had completed one quarter, for the rest followed by rote, and I finished my catechism, returning north with triumph.
“North northwest, north by west north!”
“Very good.” He clapped his dry paws together. “You have boxed the compass.”
“What’s that I did?”
“You have named all thirty-two points of the compass rose—we call it ‘boxing the compass,’ an essential part of a sailor’s education.” He looked at me like a proud father, and I remembered another, too, who had looked at me that way.
“And now for the other piece of the puzzle—the winds themselves,” he said, unrolling another chart and anchoring the corners.
“This is the wind rose, much older than the compass rose, and in use since ancient times. Where the compass uses the latest in science, the wind rose has a more classical provenance, relying on ancient myth and legend, and seafaring superstition. Curiously, both are equally reliable, and relied upon. The wind horses, as they are known, are the four steeds of the ether, north, south, east, and west. Classically they were known as Boreas to the north, Eurus to the east, Notus to the south, and Zephyrus to the west. The wind rose is still in use in the Mediterranean, and because we dominate these waters sailors have named the directions in our modern dialect. Thus north becomes tramontana, meaning over the mountains, and is usually denoted, as here, by a fleur-de-lys. East, the Levante direction, is usually denoted by a Maltese cross, since that way the holy city of Jerusalem lies. You will see here that the other seven directions, or ‘rhumbs’ as they are known, are also named in modern tongue, Tramontana, then we have Greco, Levante, Syroco, Ostro for the south, Africus, Ponente for the west, Maestro, and back to Tramontana.”
I had stopped listening and hoped he would not test me on this. I was sure whomever we found to ferry me to Mestre had a handle on all this and would not be asking his noble passenger for help.
“Using the winds and the compass points as our guides, modern sailors have succeeded in discovering the unknown. The wind rose and the compass rose, these two simple figures here, have enabled Venice to become the Stato del Mar par excellence. You have heard, I suppose, of Marco Polo?”
I knew a little, from my travels with my mother, but did not want to hear more, so nodded. But Signor Cristoforo, like Brother Guido, knew when I was lying.
“He came home after a quarter of a century traveling in the East, as far as Peking. His family did not know him, dressed as he was in the garb of a rough Tartar. Then he sliced open his tunic, and diamonds and precious stones poured forth. He wrote painstakingly of all his travels for the rest of his days, but even on his deathbed complained that he had written not even half of what he saw.”
I stifled a yawn, for I had not slept as you will recall. Although I liked the idea of limitless jewels.
“He made a beginning. And yet there is more out there, that other states may claim. Much more,” he said with a faraway look. “I myself am here in your city to raise money for such an expedition.”
“Really?” I felt I was nearer to divining why he had accepted this humble post in my father’s house, teaching a green girl far away from all who loved him.
“Oh, yes. I’m hoping to petition your father for funds. One day, men will travel beyond the edge of the map.”
I would be happy to sail to Mestre and no farther. I would be done with travel if I could but see Brother Guido again. I thought I better ask a question, for my tutor’s sake, but I made it pertinent to my journey, for my own. “And which wind prevails at present?”
“Zephyrus, the west wind.” He smiled. “Here is where mythology reigns over science. The ancients believed that the wind Zephyrus, brother to the north wind Boreas, fell in love with Chloris. This nymph transformed into Flora, the nymph that is associated with spring flowers.”
I said naught for I had not the energy to explain that I knew more of Flora and Chloris than I ever wished to. “Zephyrus forced himself upon Chloris, and their issue, Xantus and Brutus, were horses, later to belong to Achilles. Hence the term ‘horses’ used for the winds.”
I recalled suddenly that Brother Guido had once named the blue figure in the Primavera “Zephyrus,” and I now knew why. He was in the process of raping Chloris, my darling mother, who then turned to Flora—me—for help. I snorted softly through my nose. I’d die before I helped her. The four winds could all rape my mother, in turn, right up the arse for all I cared. And I would hold her down for them.
“But I stray from my course.”
(As did I.)
“Essentially the prevailing wind at present, mid-February, is Zephyrus. He heralds the spring, which will be here in one full month.”
I could listen no more; I calculated later that it must have been the mention of February—the month of Ash Wednesday and his trial—that brought Brother Guido so sharply and painfully to my mind that my heart ached. Now, I know that you, having witnessed the whole of my lesson with Signor Cristoforo, will judge me. Stupid little tart, you will scoff. She was given so many answers that day. Why did she not listen, why could she not see? But you must understand that at that time, I had but one thought in my head. I did not see that my questions had been answered, that a door had been op
ened, that a code had been broken. I gripped Signor Cristoforo by the arm, the first time I had touched him and ‘twas no gentle caress. He stopped in surprise.
“I need you to help me,” I begged, putting all that I had into one beseeching glance. “Someone I love is in trouble. Someone I’d do anything to help.” I took a breath, gave my next words as much emphasis as I could. “My Filipa. My Diego.”
He looked at me for a long moment. Then sighed. “What do you need?”
32
This was a castle of lions, a harbor guarded by ravening beasts. I had been to the Arsenale before, on one of my mother’s little educational trips, but never before had I defied the creature that ruled this city. Now that I planned to leave I saw its countenance everywhere; only now that I wanted to wrest myself from its bloody jaws did I know that the lion of Saint Mark guarded this citadel jealously, was a constant presence and nowhere more than here. The great stone beasts guarded the iron gates of this place, a fortress of bloodred stone, capped with white crenellations of sharp teeth. They were creatures of my mother—spawn of the she-lion that suckled them. If I passed through these gates, I was entering the circus. She could raise her hand like a Roman empress, to have me ripped limb from limb, for the gladiators to follow and battle on my blood-soaked sand. Signor Cristoforo was let pass through the gates and I followed. Even at the doors the beast was guardian—the first thing I saw was a great stone face of a lion, set into one wall, paying out rope through his mouth for the sailors to pull and cut to size. I stared at the gaping mouth, mesmerized. I was once again a Daniel.
I knew from my mother’s instruction that security here was as tight as a cur’s arse (my words not hers), but the doors were opened without delay to Signor Cristoforo and myself. We used the same deception which had taken us out of the ducal palace without challenge. I had simply run to my mother’s room for one of her trademark masks (I say “simply”—in truth I was more terrified while entering my mother’s chamber than the gates of the Arsenale). Our similarity meant that I had only to put this on and I was she. I blessed the times I had aped her speech and bearing while trying to improve my own. Chin high, I swept down the passages, heart thumping lest I should meet the real thing. I did see Marta, carrying coals, but nodded and swept by, and even that bitch did not know me. I glided down the Giants’ staircase to the foot where Signor Cristoforo awaited me, and we left the place without question. If the dogaressa wished to visit the Arsenale with her daughter’s tutor, it was clearly no one’s business but hers. We hurried down the Riva degli Schiavoni toward the docks, aided in our deception by a pissing drizzle which kept every passing wight huddled into his hood.
Inside the citadel of the Arsenale I was reminded, now as before, of the night when Brother Guido and I had stumbled upon the shipwrights working in the old castle at Pisa; the smells of tar and wood and linen were the same. I followed my tutor to the side of the covered harbor where smiths, caulkers, and sawyers ran about and weaved around each other, fetching and carrying in an ever-flowing stream of people. These, I knew, were the arsenalotti, a buzzing hive of drones with my mother as their queen. This was the Stato del Mar in action.
Signor Cristoforo fixed the mass with his weather eyes and shot out a hand to grab the arm of a passing man. The fellow was small and slight, with gray hair and a young face, albeit with skin tanned to leather by seagoing. His eyes turned down at the edges and gave him a sad expression, but when he recognized his captor he smiled a smile of great charm—surprising, for as far as I could see he had absolutely no teeth at all. The two men clapped hands and hugged—slapping each other on the back in a brother’s embrace. And when the stranger spoke I knew him for a Genoese, for he had the same thick vowels as my tutor. Perhaps this was his brother.
“Cristoforo, you old cunt! How come they let you out of Genoa?”
“They let you go, didn’t they?” replied my tutor in the same spirit. “I hear that they’re getting rid of all the ugly sailors.”
“Must be quiet back there then.”
It was an acknowledged joke and I smiled politely, before I realized that no one could actually see what I was doing behind my mask and under my hood.
“How is Lisabetta?”
The stranger spat neatly. “A pain in my arse and my pocket.”
“The children?”
“The same.” But it was said with love and gave me a jolt—I realized I envied this toothless sailor; he was married with children whom he loved, just like my tutor. I had a moment of misgiving—I was about to put him in danger.
“And how about you? You still teaching? Taught the dogaressa anything in the sack yet? Christ, she’s a tasty piece—makes my prick pain me.”
Now I chuckled, and the seaman looked beneath my hood and noticed my mask for the first time. Fell to his knees.
“Jesus shat! The dogaressa!” His tan face blanched. “My lady, forgive me,” he babbled. “I knew not . . . that is, I meant nothing—”
“Get up, you old pisspot,” exclaimed Signor Cristoforo, “before the whole place sees you. This is not the dogaressa, but her daughter. Signorina Luciana Mocenigo, meet Bonaccorso Nivola, the best sailor on these shores or any other.”
I gave the man my hand, as it seemed the right thing to do, and he kissed it, like a man who had just been hit round the head with a frittata pan. Signor Cristoforo drew our little trio behind a stack of pine planks twice as tall as we. The sweet sap filled my nostrils.
“She’s minded to go on a trip and wants you to take her.”
“A trip.”
“Yes. You still running the rope boats to Mestre?”
“Of course. Only way I can pay for all the bambini my Lisa-betta pops out. ‘Nother one on the way.”
“All right then. One trip. And you can feed them for a year.”
“Gold?”
“Gold.”
“How much?”
“Fifty ducats.”
The seaman gave a toothless whistle, and I swallowed. Fifty ducats was a fortune! Where the hell was I supposed to get that money? Signor Cristoforo must be mad! Then, in a horrid instant, I knew; but the thought bathed me in a sweat of terror. My mother had a coffer of gold ducats in her chamber—I had seen it only this morning as I had searched for her masks. Madonna. Then I straightened up. Only one thing could make me go back in that room, and that was Brother Guido. I’d do it if I must. The sailors continued their bargaining, as if I wasn’t there.
“When?”
“Tomorrow night. First night of Carnevale.”
Bonaccorso Nivola considered, then jerked his head in my direction. “Her mum know she’s going?”
A tiny pause from Signor Cristoforo. “No. It’s a matter of the heart.”
This was true enough—I’d laid all before my tutor and he knew that I fled for love.
Bonaccorso caught on quick. “One way then?”
“Yes.”
The sailor was silent.
“It’s risky, I won’t lie to you,” admitted my tutor. “But then you can retire.”
Bonaccorso sucked in his gums, the air whistling through his lack of teeth.
“What the hell,” he said, then addressed me directly for the first time. “Be on the San Zaccharia pier at midnight tomorrow. Bring the gold in a lace kerchief. I’ll be on the rope barge. I’ll stop for a moment, no more. You ask me if I’ve ever been to Burano to see the lacemakers. Got it?”
I nodded, mute with terror and triumph.
“Till tomorrow then.” And he was gone into the crowd as quickly as he had come. I felt faint and elated at once. It was done. I was committed. Tomorrow, I would be gone.
My tutor and I hurried back to the palace as fast as we could and parted at the staircase without a word. Both too frightened and agitated to give note to the fact this would be our last meeting. I knew I would not see him again, and I could not speak lest I give myself away, but I hoped that as I hurried away he might know that I would not forget him, and that he knew how mu
ch I owed Signor Cristoforo of Genoa.
33
I did not sleep that night, and would have spent the next day in a jitter but was informed at breakfast by the witch Marta that my mother had a particular excursion to take me on today. I steeled myself for a day of polite chatter as we circled the canals of Venice in the Bucintoro and wondered how I could bear the burden of my guilty secret without breaking down under her green eye and admitting all. But when I met my mother in the presence chamber she was wearing no mask and had left off her platformed clogs. She wore a cream lace shift and a sleeveless surcoat of her favorite green, with tiny gold lions embroidered at the hem. She wore no jewels or ornaments, but as ever with my mother her costume was not less than priceless. I don’t know much, but I do know clothes; the workmanship of the lace had clearly demanded that the old ladies of Burano worked their ancient fingers to the quick, and the embroidery of the tiny lions at the hem of her gown was worth hundreds of ducats alone. Yet her hair was unbound and rippled to her waist. She had left her face unpainted, had merely rubbed her lips with a shiny salve so they glowed full and natural rose, and touched her eyelids with the same gloss so her eyes were left to speak for themselves, the green of deep, deep water. She looked about fifteen. I knew then that all my finery, the primping and preening of my ladies, was worth naught—my mother in her most natural state was the Venus of this sea. Yet when she smiled I thought she looked more mortal and friendly than I had ever seen her. For one instant I felt a pang that I was about to lose her again, my Vero Madre, the woman I had obsessed about finding for all these years.
She took my hand. “Come,” she said. “Today we are to learn the most valuable lesson of all. We are to learn about justice—Venetian justice.”
The words were strangely at odds with her innocent appearance.
The Botticelli Secret Page 32