The Forging of Fantom

by Reginald Hill

  But when the old horse-coper died a couple of years before, his fortune quite rightly went to his sons and his financial expertise went God knows where, and Lazzaro was not living so comfortably as of yore.

  ‘’Tis said there is dowry enough for only one of the girls,’ concluded Godfrey. ‘So best move quickly, Carlo. Or better still, buy yourself a Cretan poultice and wear it round your inflamed limb till the fever is drawn out!’

  He left me with this mockery, and I left him with a light heart, for his remark about the dowry had cheered rather than worried me. Girls with large dowries were in large demand. Those with none at all had no hope. Except, of course, from such true and uncommercial lovers as I!

  Poor naive fool! I made my way to Molini’s house rejoicing that my lack of noble origins would not harm my suit and my lack of mercenary motives would actually strengthen it! Could I meet myself on the way now, I would split my own skull with a club to save that young heart the pain of learning what a world these old men had created for him.

  The house was in an area of the city I did not know, fashionable enough but much removed from the great palazzi on the Grand Canal. This pleased me, for I was not like to be overawed.

  My welcome was encouraging. I was taken into a salon where I sat and took refreshment and conversed with Signore Molini and his wife, who showed a lively and flattering interest in my concerns. Looking back, I now see that I must have been a great puzzle to them. Rapidly they had realized – perhaps they had made inquiries already – that I was no Priuli but that same Croatian Uskok who depended wholly for his existence on the mercy of the State and the charity of Benetto. Yet they had seen me the previous night as merry as any young clarissimo in a Priuli gondola, and they saw me this morning elegant and at ease in a gentleman’s clothing, conversing in a gentleman’s accent and behaving with a gentleman’s manners. My powers of imitation were not confined to the mere learning of language.

  What speculations must have raced through their minds. Benetto and Zanetta had no children. Could it be (improbable but not impossible) that they had adopted this yobbo? Or could he perhaps have wealth of his own, some heap of bloodstained gold which he had miraculously contrived both to steal from the Uskoks and conceal from the Ten?

  So they sat and talked and smiled, and all the while I thought it was my own deserts that were creating this rapport between us.

  After a while the two daughters appeared. Margharita had a bold and rather flashy attractiveness which she must have inherited from her mother. But my attention was wholly (and holily) on the subtler charms of Felicia, whose slight figure was perched on the edge of a distant chair with her hands clasped modestly in her lap and her eyes cast down on the little silver cross that she held there. I had seen paintings enough of saints and madonnas since coming to Venice, for the grandees are more willing to fee an artist than pay their tailors, but nothing had moved me much except for some strapping females from the mythology painted naked by a fellow called Titian. But now at last I realized how the image of holiness may be an aid to devotion, and though there were in that room models for a pair of Dianas who could have horned a saint let alone a huntsman, my converted eyes beheld nothing but their icon of holiness.

  We exchanged few words on that first occasion, but those she did utter, conventional and commonplace to the dull ear, were charged for me with modest but encouraging recognition of my love.

  I could have remained there all day, but stayed not a second longer than the etiquette of such a visit permitted. Certes, whatever doubts there might be of the man, they would find nothing to complain of in the manners!

  As I departed, I was urged to come again, not to any formal gathering but to such another informal meeting as this had been. This pleased me much, for at a dinner or a masquerade I would have had to share Felicia with many. More important to the Molinis, of course, was the fact that such casual and unwitnessed visits as this kept their options open till my true status could be assessed. But I did not see things in such a cynical light in those days, and my hopes grew daily as I became a regular, though still not a public, visitor to the house.

  How did it come about that the truth of my position was not revealed sooner? (The truth being, of course, that I was a penniless, common layabout whose most optimistic prospect was to keep out of the pozzi!) The thing to understand about these great Venetian families is that they are proud, they are honourable, and they are malicious. And of these, only the last quality is unqualified! The Priulis’ pride would make them naturally secretive about family matters, particularly to queries from unimportant people. After the expenses of Doge Antonio’s coronation, the family coffers were light, but this was all the more reason not to destroy the impression that they could if they wished turn a penniless layabout into a well-heeled gent. Family honour would not be compromised by this impression (though it probably would by the act!).

  But, most important of all I suspect, was the malicious pleasure felt by all the clarissimi, even those of the more important branches of the Molinis themselves, at seeing Lazzaro make a fool of himself. By marrying as he did he had let his class and his family down. Teresa had retained a hearty vulgarity which not the tallest choppines, blondest hair and biggest bubbs in Venice could disguise. They wouldn’t let the same mistake occur twice, but they had no objection to permitting Lazzaro to get in up to his neck before preventing it.

  So I grew happier by the day and only Godfrey tried to warn me, but even he desisted when I became quarrelsome, recognizing as all men who survive the perils of youth must that some lessons have to be learned at first hand, even by such a skilled imitator as I was.

  Felicia was a quiet shy girl, more fluent in her silences than her conversation, yet we did well enough. She loved music and would play on the theorbo, singing in her light clear voice of lovelorn maids and faithless wooers, and ever and again our eyes and our smiles would meet. Then I would sing songs of my own country, in which wooers and maids came to a happier end, though often one so bluntly put that I would moderate it in my translation which I think she sometimes guessed for she would blush and smile a little into her hand. Sometimes we would whisper together as she sat with her instrument, or rather I would whisper as I told her colourful stories of my past (I’d given my family another couple of promotions in rank!) and she would sit, open-mouthed (oh God! the soft moist pinkness of that open mouth!) encouraging me with eyes rounded in amazement. Sometimes she would gasp as I described myself in some particularly extreme peril and put her hand on mine as though to comfort me, which was always the signal for one of her parents to join us and break off the intimacy. They need not have worried. I could have no evil thoughts in the company of such beauty, yet all the Molinis treated me as though I’d come to woo Felicia with my weapon primed and resting on my shoulder!

  Lazzaro I could not like, try as I might. He was a nasty piece of work, with a glutton’s gut, a boozer’s nose, and a breath like an open tomb. All his talk was of his famous family and their importance in the State, like a eunuch remembering his balls. I much preferred his wife, whose bright and breezy vulgarity was a pleasant change from the subtle, insinuating female Venetian manner. She enjoyed wealth and comfort and was as keen as her husband to marry her daughters off well, but as for turning herself into anything she was not, she neither saw the need, nor had the capacity.

  But she knew the rules of the game and was damned sure I was going to play them. I might have been able to cut a few corners under the drink-dulled gaze of Lazzaro, but if I held Felicia’s hand overlong at parting, Teresa would belt my wrist with her fan and cheerfully announce, ‘Time’s up. On your way, young lechery.’

  Margharita was the enigma. She was the product both of her breeding and her society. She had all the strength, sharpness and self-confidence of her mother plus all the subtler talents of the Venetian gentlewoman. Yet she seemed not to be courted – or at least I seemed to be the only regular visitor with any amatory standing.

  Quevedo, who
had dropped out of sight for a few weeks after our combined assault on the Cretan batteries, now reappeared. His absence had allowed me to appear to be complying with Benetto’s injunction and the first thing I did on his return was to tell him of this.

  ‘So, I am a danger to you and to the State,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘What think you of that?’

  ‘I think it is nonsense,’ I answered promptly.

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Why, because you are my friend and would not imperil me any more than I would you.’

  ‘No more,’ he agreed, smiling. ‘And the State? Why may I not be a danger there?’

  I laughed.

  ‘How might such a puissant State as this be harmed by one who is nothing more than a …’

  ‘A writer?’ he prompted.

  Scribbler had been the word I had hesitated to use, but I nodded.

  ‘Right again, young Carlo,’ he laughed. ‘Would that the College and Senate had half your wisdom!’

  Feeling myself mocked, I said slyly, ‘Though if you are so harmless, I wonder why the Duke Osuna pays you?’

  He stopped laughing but his tone remained light.

  ‘And who has told you that, my friend?’ he asked.

  I saw no reason to prevaricate.

  ‘Godfrey,’ I said.

  ‘Hatfield? The Englishman?’ He mused a moment, then laughed again. ‘Why then, it must be true, for these English are so honest that they will poison their wives rather than deceive them! Come, Carlo, if you are not to be seen with me, then tonight we will go to a meeting of the Mascherati where no one is seen with anyone!’

  These Mascherati were members of one of those talking clubs they call Academies. Quevedo had outlined their history for me before my first visit, but I paid little attention until he said that the State was so neurotic that it kept a close eye on all the academies, whatever their particular interest, and didn’t hesitate to ban those suspected of being subversive.

  ‘What?’ I had said, alarmed. ‘Will the Ten have their spies there?’

  ‘In a civilized society, everyone is a spy!’ he had replied. ‘But never fear. We do not talk at the Mascherati of politics or religion, but of matters much more interesting!’

  This hint, given with a sly grin, plus the very fact that the Accademia delli Mascherati was so called because its members wore masks, thus permitting nobles and commoners to mingle without ceremony and (most important!) women to attend without compromise, made me believe an upper-class orgy was awaiting me. So I had accompanied Quevedo to the house of the club’s patron, a fairly important nobleman called Gasparo Valier, all tremulous and freshly bathed. In the event I found myself seated on a very hard chair in a room full of masked men (and a very few women) listening to a discussion on whether the elephant, which is the largest, or the lion, which is the fiercest, was the true king of all beasts I After half an hour I grew so bored that I fell asleep and (so Quevedo assured) snored so loud that further conversation was not possible till I fell off my chair and woke up!

  Much against my will, I had gone again some time later, and though no less bored (the topic for discussion being, why is the sky blue?) I contrived to keep awake by studying the upper halves of the women present, a fact (my awakeness, not my study) which brought a complimentary pleasantry from Valier as the meeting broke up.

  I would not have returned now except that I had missed Quevedo’s company and this seemed as good a way as any to enjoy it without the usual attendant risks of drunkenness and venery. I had resolved to live a life of radiant purity till Felicia were legitimately mine. Sober, I could usually guarantee to avoid whores, but drink weakened my resolution, so wine I avoided also. I diverted my animal spirits by hard, exercise, swimming many miles daily in the lagoon, practising the skills of combat which Godfrey taught me and becoming one of the foremost players of their game of pallone, which they play in St Stephen’s Piazza before crowds of many hundreds. Thus night after night I went early to my bed, too tired for mischief, and only at risk from the malice of Maria who, finding her lewd ministrations rejected, would now grab at me openly when we were alone or even steal into my room when I lay sleeping and play upon my pipe with fingers and mouth in the hope of bringing me to sin before my good angel could awake me. Sometimes, alas, my angel slept more soundly than I, and my tardy reveille was a cascade of notes pouring out of my poor abused instrument. Her joy at my shame made me think she kept league with the devil, but I could not denounce her for she lay under the strong protection of Zanetta who, I half-suspected, was privy to her evil assaults.

  All these things I told Quevedo as we made our way to Gasparo Valier’s house near the Fondamenta Nuove. Rather to my surprise he did not mock at me or even smile, except when I told him of Maria’s wickedness.

  ‘Carlo,’ he said seriously, ‘this girl, Felicia, what do you know of her?’

  ‘I know she is the perfectest of her sex,’ I rhapsodized. ‘The fairest of face, the holiest of spirit, the gentlest of speech, the truest of heart, and the most gifted in all those arts and skills which become a woman.’

  ‘So, you have tried her out then?’ he murmured.

  I rounded on him angrily reaching for my stiletto (for the gentlemen of Venice but rarely wear swords, and in most of their cities on the terrafirma it is forbidden by law).

  ‘What, Carlo!’ he said in alarm. ‘You are too hasty! Clearly your mind runs on matters carnal, for I meant no slur on your lady’s chastity. No, all I meant was, is she wise in thought and speech? economical in household affairs? able to command servants? active in charity? Are you truly content that in all ways she will be an ornament to your household, a helpmeet to your career, and a delight to your bed?’

  ‘I am, I am!’ I answered with all the fervour of young love.

  ‘And it is for these great qualities that you love her?’

  ‘How could any man do less?’ I queried.

  ‘Some few seem to have managed it,’ he said. ‘But ask yourself this, Carlo. Where are the similar qualities in you that may provoke such a paragon to rerurn your love?’

  I hate these intellectual fellows who can trip you up with words! It is true that I have listened to them and learned from them, observing that words are a weapon which may often succeed where ball and steel cannot prevail, for a man can cover his heart and head with tempered mail, but he carries his soul around with him like a baboon carries its arsehole. I was truly and deeply in love with Felicia (I think) but even then I had a soul of realism, pink and bare, which these words of Quevedo’s pricked most painfully. In a serious quarrel, I have learnt hard, never let a man speak if you can kill him first. But this was no killing quarrel and all I could do was answer scornfully that it was different for a man, and conceal the real doubts he had uncovered in my soul and preserve a sulky silence the rest of the way to Valier’s house.

  As we got near, we put on our masks so that none observing us enter could mark who we were. There was a goodly number there that night and the meeting was about to begin, so quickly seizing a goblet of wine, I took my customary retired place and prepared to be bored.

  The topic for discussion was the usual absurdity these intellectual mountebanks went in for, something about whether a man might inhabit the moon without falling off. After a reasonably interesting start in which there was some enlightening speculation as to where the moon disappeared to as it grew smaller, they started talking incomprehensibly about some fellow called Copernicus and another called Galileo Galilei. They both sounded like madmen, and heretics too, but such as these were ever revered in the State of Venice which at best preserved a grumbling union with the Holy Father in Rome.

  So I ceased to pay much attention and examined my companions instead. Their masks were little use in concealment of identity to anyone with a quick ear and a sharp eye. A man’s clothes, the way he holds his hands or crosses his legs, the intonations of his voice, are just as revealing as the features of his face. As for the women, I quickly identified two or
three by my usual means, then started with surprise as, in a shadowy coign, I observed Margharita Molini. I looked more closely to make sure. Yes, there was no doubt. She had inherited her mother’s finest features. I would recognize those burnished bubbs anywhere.

  By her side was a man whom I did not recognize, save to the extent of being sure I had not seen him at these meetings before. Yet there was something familiar about his outline I felt. I waited for him to speak, but he was apparently as uninvolved in the discussion as I, though for different reasons. His fingers paddled Margharita’s palm and sometimes he leaned close to murmur in her ear and his hand then would brush against her breast and she would push him away, reacting (I guessed) more to the place than to the deed.

  I continued my examination of those present, spotting one or two other familiar figures, and the thought occurred to me that if I could do this so easily, how much more accurate would the trained eye of an agent for the Ten be! This notion refocused my attention on the discussion, and I was mightily relieved to discover it had moved from the perilous area of the heretics to matters too nonsensical to be dangerous, such as who the moon belonged to! The two main claimants seemed to be the earth and the sun. Someone suggested that if there were indeed (as some fools seriously believe!) men in the moon, then perhaps it might be that the moon was theirs alone. To which Quevedo replied that nothing was man’s but in fee to God and if the moon-men’s government did not recognize this then they were not fit to hold the moon even as stewards, for their politics would surely take the orb out of its proper orbit and shatter the balance of things.

  ‘May those of the earth, or the sun, say, in those circumstances legitimately invade the moon and bring it back to its proper orbit?’ inquired someone.

  Quevedo replied, ‘I would say that, on peril of their souls, they may not neglect such an invasion.’

  ‘What of those men in the moon who fear its new orbit but have sworn an oath to be true to those who choose its perihelion?’ inquired Margharita Molini’s companion.