The Serpent of Venice Page 12

  “Corsica? He talked of Cyprus. Why Corsica?”

  “Lorenzo was quite insistent,” said I. “And he insists I accompany you, to assist and protect you.”

  “But the whole reason I wanted a slave was so Lorenzo and I could run away together and not feel guilty that there was no one to take care of Papa; if you come with me—”

  “We will bring your guilt as well. You wouldn’t have escaped it anyway. It is a parent’s gift. I was orphaned as a babe, yet carry the curse of my parents’ guilt like a woodpecker around my neck.”

  “You mean an albatross. The curse is supposed to be an albatross around your neck.”

  “You’re positive?”

  She nodded. “Albatross.”

  “I was a very poor child. The nuns that took me in couldn’t afford an albatross, so they just put a bit of string on a woodpecker the cat brought in.”

  “Well, that’s not the same, is it?”

  “An albatross is a crashing huge bird, innit? You can’t just go garroting a small child with it, that would be heinous, even for nuns.”

  “But as a metaphor for guilt—”

  “Well, quite right, as a metaphor, the size of the bird really doesn’t matter, I suppose.”

  “Since you were lying outrageously anyway,” she provided.

  “Well, you may choose whichever guilt fowl you would like strung around your neck, but mine is a crashing-huge swan—with an eye patch.”

  “Fine, you’ll have to book passage. I’ll give you money.”

  “And Lorenzo said you are to disguise yourself as a boy,” said I. “Cover your hair and, you know, your bits.” I gestured to her more obvious bits.

  “Well, as long as my Lorenzo will be in Corsica, so will I.” She rolled her eyes and hugged herself in that dreamy, girlish way that lifted and accentuated her more obvious bits, and I felt the sudden weight of a one-eyed guilt swan for having to deceive her.

  “Come here, sit,” said she. “That knife wound won’t heal if left open like that. It needs cleaning and some stitches.”

  “You can do that?”

  “I can.”

  And so she had.

  When she was readying to tie off the last stitch, she said, “Not much I can do for the puncture wounds on your sides. Clean and bandage them.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself, then,” said I. “They’ll probably just poison my blood with madness and I’ll die.”

  “Those are like the wounds on your bottom when I found you, aren’t they?”

  “Pish-posh, not at all, are you daft?” said I, as I tried to formulate some credible explanation for the claw marks. But alas, I was spared . . .

  “Jessica!” came Shylock’s voice from outside the door, the latch rattling.

  “You may not be long for this world anyway,” Jessica whispered to me as she went to unlatch the door, leaving needle and thread hanging from my ribs.

  Shylock came through the door with great vigor and enthusiasm for a man of his years. Great vigor and enthusiasm.

  “What? What? What? What? What?” said he, with what I really suppose, honestly, was more anger than enthusiasm.

  “I sense a question coming—” said I.

  “You! You! You! You! You!” said the Jew, waving a finger under my nose.

  “And there is the answer,” I replied.

  “What are you? What kind of creature? What foul villain? You would eat of my food, live under my roof, and then you would steal from me? You—you—you— you—”

  “And there he goes—”

  “Philistine!” Shylock paused, trembled, his index finger doing a palsied anger twitch under my nose.

  “Is that a good thing?” I asked Jessica, who had returned to my side on the bench where she’d been knotting the last stitch. She shook her head and looked back to her task.

  “So, no, then,” said I.

  “You-you-you—Philistines are the ancient enemies of the Hebrew people. Goliath was a Philistine!”

  “Oh, so they’re tall?” said I. “Smashing!”

  “No! Not smashing. Goliath was an enemy, a scourge on the Hebrew people, an evil giant!”

  “Well, you don’t know that, do you?”

  “I know. Everyone knows. It says so in the books of the Kings.”

  “But what if he was just a normal-size bloke, and David was a more diminutive hero, like myself? A smaller fellow—with a huge schlong, of course.” I nodded at the bloody obviousness of the last point.

  “Goes without saying,” added Jessica, nodding along with me.

  Shylock repointed his twitching, accusatory digit at his daughter. “You do not say such things in my house. You—you—you—you—”

  “Run along, love, it appears that Papa’s been stricken with an apoplexy of the second person.”

  “I’m finished,” said the lovely Jewess. She stood and breezed by her father and out the front door.

  Shylock turned back to me. “What—”

  I stood, and held my hand to Shylock’s face to have him hold his tongue. “I sensed treachery afoot in Antonio’s ranks, so knowing that their only loyalty would be to profit, I took the ducat to bribe one of Antonio’s men. He arranged to meet me in a private place and told me that Antonio intends to assassinate you tomorrow night when you join him for dinner, so he will be released from his bond. After informing me thus, two of Antonio’s men set upon me with knives, no doubt thinking I had more gold on my person, but certain with the intent that I would never return to you with this warning. So, I have bled for you and your gold, Shylock.” I held my arms out so he could look upon the knife wound, the claw marks on my sides, the bruises on my back and shoulders where Viv had thrown me against the wall.

  Shylock’s rage ran from his face with what was left of the color. “But his bond will not be broken upon my death.”

  “But he does not know the law. Which is why you must go to his house with the two huge Jews, Ham and Japheth, attending you. Eat with him, and before you send your attendants away, share with him the circumstances of the bond—confabulate some outrageous legacy that goes beyond Jessica, so he will know that he may never be released by murder. Your bond over Antonio is the only reason he would risk venturing murder. He would only risk running astray of the law to avoid confronting it later, should you call your bond due.”

  “But surely his men have told him now of your escape. He will not expect me to come into his trap.”

  “His men will tell no tales. They are not the only ones who defy the law by carrying weapons. I took a wickedly sharp fish knife from your kitchen; you’ll find it gone. Let us say the surprise of my having it was the last surprise for them. They will not be found.” It was a serviceable lie. The fish knife was at the bottom of the canal with Jessica’s boots, where I had sheathed it, but it was a serviceable lie.

  “You killed them?”

  “I acquired some skill with a blade before I washed up on your doorstep. Did I not say that your revenge would be my revenge?”

  He took my hand and patted it as he shook it. “I apologize, Lancelot, for your pain and for doubting you. You shall be in my prayers—and my heart when I confront Antonio.”

  “Don’t confront him, my friend, disarm him. Antonio plans his treachery with a cohort of scoundrels, as you shall see. You will disarm them with your own breath, by appearing fearless in their midst. Antonio knows you to be shrewd and will see that you would not expose yourself or your family to danger if your bond could be broken with the swipe of a blade. Hint that you considered his intent and dismissed it, knowing that he, too, would be too shrewd to think you’d leave your hold on him so flimsy.”

  “I shall.”

  “Good. Now, when Antonio secured the loan, he told you of each of his ships, the cargos, destinations, and the schedule for their return, did he not?”

  “I knew them before he even asked. It is my business to know the business of the traders on the Rialto. I pay good moneys to stevedores and sailors at the docks
for such knowledge.”

  “Then pray write them down for me, all those things you know of his ships and their schedules.”

  “I shall. What will you do with this knowledge, good Lancelot?”

  “Trust,” said I, trust being the shortest thread to the utter bollocks I might have spun. “I will use it well. But now, good Shylock, I am wounded and weary and I need to rest.”

  And at midnight, on to Belmont.

  “Do they have dogs?” asked the boatman.

  We glided across the dark lagoon, gentle waves lapping on the bow like drinking dogs. Dogs? I didn’t remember any dogs. But then, I had been very drunk when I’d arrived at Belmont on the night of my murder.

  Dogs?

  Wherefore dogs?

  What ho, dogs?

  Bloody buggering barking biting drooling bloody dogs?

  “When we land, you go onshore to assure the way is clear, then, if no dogs, I shall debark.”

  “No,” said the useless and shifty gondolier, stubborn and unmoving at his oar.

  “Fine, I shall debark my own dogs,” but even as I said it, I felt a twinge in my scalp and I saw in my mind’s eye that no, there were no hounds on the island. She was there, under the oiled iron waves, under the gondola, and she was showing me that there were no dogs.

  I leaned over the rail and stared into the water, trying to see below the inky surface. “Well, that’s helpful, Viv, but you’re a long way from providing bloody comfort with that bit about their being delicious.” Then I pushed back from the railing, lest the siren snatch the head from my shoulders as she had my enemies’ the night before. “Thanks loads, though, love.” I shuddered.

  “Bloody barking,” said the boatman.

  “No, there are no dogs,” said I.

  “Wasn’t talking about the dogs, I was talking about you talking to the fishes.”

  “Just find a place you can land or let me off,” said I. “I’m not swimming in.”

  I wore a pair of black wool tights and a black linen shirt that Jessica had tailored for me out of a trunk of Shylock’s castoffs, over which I wore a wide belt pilfered from the lady’s own closet. I’d knocked the heels off a pair of Jessica’s shoes of soft leather and they fit me well enough I might climb in them as well as move on stone floors with stealth.

  I’d managed to put together a kit of another fine filleting knife I honed myself to a razor edge for removing the wax seals, as well as a coil of rope and a padded grappling hook made from a gaffe that I’d bought from a fisherman with money from Jessica. In my youth, before I’d been picked to be the king’s fool, I’d worked as a performer in a traveling circus, where the leader of the troupe, a vile Belgian called Belette, trained me, first as a cutpurse, and later as a second-story man, once he saw that I was agile enough to scamper up the side of a building, slip in through an upper window, and unlock the front door for my fellow thieves who waited outside. Jessica knew a goldsmith on the island who was happy to loan her a selection of his tools, which would provide me with lock picks fine enough for anything I might encounter. The locked veranda where the suitors’ caskets lay, nor the locks themselves, would be little challenge.

  I made the boatman circle the island twice to assure that the only servant on watch was a single man at the front dock, then he found a small swath of sand, barely wide enough for the gondola to knife its way between the rocks, where he was able to land the boat.

  “Wait here. I don’t know how long, but if the sky threatens dawn, go on without me.”

  “You said an hour.”

  “The bells of St. Mark’s don’t toll in the night. Pretend it’s an hour.”

  “You’re not here to shag Portia, are you?” asked the dim boatman.

  I put a stack of coins on the raised deck where the gondolier stood. “Half your payment. The other half when you’ve returned me to La Giudecca.”

  “I’ll wait,” said the boatman.

  I hopped out of the boat, scampered across the rocks, and across a wide strip of gravel into the gardens. Of course, Brabantio had a manicured garden, land being so dear in Venice, he would show the extravagance of having ornamental shrubberies, while the poor would paddle out to the most desolate of scrub islands in the marsh to dig out a root vegetable or harvest a few wild berries.

  Belmont was Gothic in architecture, with pointed arabesque arches above the doors and windows, and little evidence that it ever had to be defended, as did most of the grand estates I had seen. With the exception of Arsenal, which was a formidable fortress, the Venetians seem to have always seen the sea and their barrier islands as their defense. Made it a piece of piss for even an out-of-practice thief possessed of inspiration.

  The tower with the locked portico atop it jutted into the garden, with great carved marble railings that begged for the velvet thread of my padded grappling hook. Without so much as a clank, I had hooked the rope through the railings and was up the two stories to the portico in two ticks. A high, round marble table stood in the center of the portico, the three caskets—one lead, one silver, and one gold—each big enough to contain a deposed king’s head, were set around the table.

  While the fingernail moon was fine to creep and climb by, I’d need more light to do the delicate work of razoring the seals, so first I found my way to the double doors that led into the palazzo, and with a lever and the goldsmith’s picks, soon I was inside. I found a small brass lantern with a candle near the still burning hearth of the great hall. With my lantern lit, I spied one of Brabantio’s crests carved above the doorway that led to the central gallery and rage rose in me until I began to shake. That pompous prick and his cohorts had taken my heart from me—forget what they had done to me, or what lives they would ruin with their war—they had killed my Cordelia.

  Dying in his cellar and being eaten by rats was not enough punishment for Brabantio. For the first time, I hoped that there was an afterlife and he could look up through the sulfurous clouds of Hell to watch me unwind his plots, drain his power, and extinguish the light of his legacy. Why bollocks about with caskets and seals when I could undo the cabal’s plan with the flick of a blade on the snowy throat of a sleeping daughter?

  I padded into the main hall and up the great marble staircase, as quiet as a cat. A row of heavy oak doors lined the mezzanine, no doubt leading to bedchambers that overlooked the gardens and the city beyond. With my lantern set against the wall to dim it, I pulled the fish knife from my belt and held it between my teeth, then palmed the heavy bronze latch so it opened without a rattle.

  I had never killed a woman before, unless you count accidental poisoning, which I do not. I’d not have thought myself capable of it before I lost Cordelia, but accepting death folds the soul, tempers and layers it like a Damascus blade. When I’d thrown myself into the canal in grief, only to be pulled out by the Moor, I’d become colder, more durable. Again, when the mermaid dragged me under into the murky deep from the dungeon, I’d resolved myself to death, and awakened a harder, sharper thing. Even as my life bubbled away last night and I thought Viv’s claws were hooks from Hell, only to find breath burning again in my lungs, my edge was honed, so fine and flexible now that I did not give two furry fucks for the life of fair Portia. I could hold my hand over her mouth and watch her life run red over the bedclothes and drip down on the head of her dead father and smile for the justice of it.

  Such a creature had I become. Vivian and I, in killing were as one.

  I pushed open the door to find no one—a room empty of people, but full of papers and maps, hand-copied books such as I had seen only in the scriptorium at the abbey where I learned to write. I carried my lantern into the room, and found there, laid out on the writing table, my throwing daggers. I had thought Antonio had worn them back to the city along with my motley, that long-ago night when I was walled in, but no, the old senator had kept them. Who, I wondered, had brought them up here, if he died in the dungeon on that very night, as was the rumor? Perhaps the puppet Jones, my jester’s scept
er, had survived as well. I strapped the leather harness with its three sheaths on the outside of my shirt. But alas, I did not find Jones. Not there.

  My daggers in place, I was on to the next door, opening it to stream the yellow lamplight through the gap to fall upon the face of beauty, but masked in satin. Portia lay under the canopy of a high-poster bed, nested in rich silks and brocade. I slipped in and pushed the door shut behind me, leaving the room bathed in pale blue moonlight.

  “I see you found your daggers,” came a woman’s voice from behind me. I jumped, straight up, about sixty feet, and came down turned toward the voice, my fillet knife in hand.

  She lay back on a fainting lounge, in the shadows, just a silhouette against the wall. I looked over my shoulder at Portia, who snored softly on.

  “Oh, don’t worry about her,” said the woman in the dark. “She puts beeswax in her ears and wears a sleeping mask. You could bang a bloody drum in here and she wouldn’t wake.”

  “Who are you?” said I.

  “I am called Nerissa,” said she. “I’m the one that found your daggers, brought them up to the Montressor’s study. You’re the fool, right? The Englishman?”

  “Possibly,” said I, thinking that she really should be quite a bit more frightened, being as I was the very vision of a murderous nightmare creeping in the night to slit the throat of her mistress and whatnot.

  “Were you the one in the dungeon, the one that did that to him?”

  “Did what? I heard he was eaten by rats.”

  “He was torn apart, and not by rats. Pieces of him were gone—great bloody hunks of him—his buttocks were missing. I saw. I was called down there by a kitchen boy who was afraid to investigate the smell. Did you do that?”

  I looked back at the sleeping Portia, then to the lady in the dark. “If you think I would do such a thing, why have you not called out?”

  The shadow shrugged. “The Montressor was a right cruel old bastard, wasn’t he? Deserved what he got, didn’t he?”

  “And what of what I am doing here, now?”

  “Are you going to hurt me?”

  “No.” I remembered her now, through the haze of wine-soaked nights before my fall from grace. The dark-haired maid who attended Portia. Fit, she was, and quick of wit, I recalled.