City of Masks Page 14

  He frowned. “But I fear we are wasting our time again. As we did in Burano.” He bowed to soften the impertinence of this remark, but it still irritated me.

  “Did Master Bearpark instruct you to conduct this investigation?” I said.

  He bowed again. “No.”

  “Then, do as I ask.” I pointed to the three men who stood before us. “Tell them to search for Bredani.”

  I was staring out of the window from the piano nobile, watching my three unlikely scouts set forth upon their quest, when somebody tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Venice is a wonder, isn’t it, my lord?” said Bernard, looking down into the street. “Every sight is a spectacle.”

  “How is your sister?” I asked quickly, not wanting to be drawn into a conversation with Bernard about the delights of this city.

  Bernard stared at me for a moment, as if he had forgotten about Margery’s attack, before the memory alighted with a jolt. “Ah yes, thank you, my lord. Margery is making a good recovery. God willing, her wounds have healed with miraculous speed, though I’m afraid that her spirits are less responsive.” His voice was suddenly full of regret. “I’m afraid she will not leave Ca’ Bearpark, for fear of being followed and attacked again.”

  “She need not worry on that front, Bernard. I’m sure the robbery Margery endured has no link whatsoever to Enrico’s murder.”

  Bernard didn’t answer, choosing instead to look at my face for a few moments, before speaking in a whisper. “I wish that were true. Margery has something to tell you, my lord. About the murder.”

  “Has she broken her vow of silence then?”

  He gasped. “Indeed not! She hasn’t said a word since we sailed from Felixstowe.” He looked about to check that we were truly alone. “She has written it down, you see. As a testament.” He then felt about in his scrip, disturbing his collection of pewter badges before producing a roll of parchment. “I’m afraid it is written in English, as women do seem to struggle so with Latin. But I hope it is of some assistance to your investigation.”

  I tried to take the roll from him, but he held on to the parchment with an unexpected determination. “Will you promise to return the testament to me as soon as you have read its contents?” I tried again to pull the parchment from his hands, but Bernard would not give up this prize so easily. “I beg you, my lord. The writing of this epistle has caused poor Margery a great deal of anguish, especially after her recent attack.”

  “Then you must let me read it, Bernard.”

  He released it with some reluctance. “Very well, my lord.”

  I waited for Bernard to wander away to the other end of the piano nobile, before I unrolled the letter. I must say, I had few expectations that anything of note would be revealed, but these were her words:

  Here begins the true and sincere testament of Margery Jagger, by the mercy of Jesus. The knowledge of this sin has filled this creature’s heart with sorrow and heaviness, and she has been disturbed and tormented by demons and spirits ever since its occasion. In response, this creature has desired to pitilessly tear at her skin in penance, and to weep and sob with misery, but that such sounds would break her holy vows of silence.

  This creature? Why was Margery calling herself such a name? I nearly summoned Bernard to return this diatribe there and then, but the next lines caught my attention:

  Two months ago, on the feast day of Saint Stephen in the last year, this creature was seeking sanctuary for silent prayer and reflection in a storeroom of Ca’ Bearpark. It was here, Lord forgive this said creature, that she witnessed Enrico Bearpark engaged in a wicked and unnatural act with another man. She did not see this other man’s face, but she knew him to be a man from the roughness of his voice and the shape of his body. This creature has sworn a vow of silence, so she could not call out to condemn their sin. Instead she hid herself and prayed for their souls. While she closed her eyes and called upon the Virgin and all the saints of Heaven, the two men began to fight like Devils. This creature does not know the Venetian tongue, but she knows that their dispute was cruel and vicious, for when they had departed the room, she found blood on the floor. This is her true and honest testament. Lord forgive this creature and preserve her soul from sin.

  I quickly rolled the parchment up and walked across the room to find Bernard skulking by the door, his vacant smile wiped from his face. “Margery regrets not telling you about this incident before,” he said. “I do hope that you can forgive her.”

  “Is this all she knows?” I said.

  He nodded vigorously. “Oh yes, my lord. Please don’t press her farther, particularly not in her current condition. There is nothing more that she can tell you.” He held out his hand for the letter, but I kept hold of it.

  “I just need to borrow this a little longer,” I said.

  “But you promised, my lord,” he called after me as I strode away.

  “You can have it back later.”

  I found Giovanni in his office, writing up figures in an account entitled “investigation costs,” with a column named “items sanctioned by Oswald de Lacy, Lord Somershill.” I tried not to let this annoy me.

  “Can you remember which of Enrico’s friends were here on the Feast of Saint Stephen?” I asked Giovanni.

  He gave a shrug. “No, Oswald. I can’t. That was nearly two months ago.” He paused. “Why are you asking?” I passed him Margery’s testament and let him read the document twice. His face fell. “Such wickedness,” was all he could say, with frequent repetition, before he looked up at me accusingly. “You see, Oswald. We should have followed my master’s advice before. This murder has nothing to do with Adolpho Bredani.”

  I would not accept defeat quite so quickly. “Could the man that Margery describes here have been Adolpho Bredani?” I asked. “He would have been in the house at the Feast of Saint Stephen.”

  “Bredani loved women,” said Giovanni. “I told you that before.”

  “But—”

  “Bredani returned to Burano for Christmas, Oswald. I gave him permission myself.” He waved the letter at me. “Now we can be sure.”

  I sat down on the small stool and let my head rest in my hands, making sure not to catch Giovanni’s eye, for I needed to think, without the distraction of looking into his self-satisfied face. Perhaps I had made a mistake. Perhaps Bearpark was right?

  I unhooked Giovanni’s cloak from the wall and passed it to him. “Come on then.”

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “Following your master’s advice.”

  It had rained overnight, so rather than walk to Castello, we took the family’s sàndolo as far as the Piazza San Marco, weaving along the maze of narrow canals, until we disembarked on the north side of the square. Now that there was peace with Hungary, Venice was going about its business with energy and spirit, despite the fact that this was a Sunday. As they say in this city, you are Venetian first and Christian second. Everywhere about us men were organizing crews for ships; boys were running about with handcarts full of heavy sacks; merchants were locked in loud and argumentative debates with one another.

  We were skirting the Piazza when we passed a gang of slaves, newly disembarked from a ship in the Molo. They were a dirty, hopeless-looking group of men, women, and children who had been captured in the lands to the north of the Black Sea by the Tartars and then sold to Venetian merchants. I could not look into their faces, but Giovanni made a point of crossing himself and calling them heathens and savages—condemned to slavery by the Curse of Ham. I walked away quickly, feeling saddened by their plight, but what use was my pity to these people? It would not free them of their chains, nor send them back to their own lands. I could only hope that they found kind masters and did not end up in the sugar plantations of Cyprus and Candia.

  As we crossed the Piazza, the oblique light of the morning sun trained its weak rays upon the four latticed domes and golden mosaics of the Basilica. I had always admired this church, but after seeing the slaves, m
y mood was bleak and I found myself wondering if there might be a more ostentatious building in the whole of Europe? Clad in all the treasures that the Venetians had stripped from the cathedrals and palaces of Constantinople, it was as over-decorated as the king’s latest mistress.

  We walked on apace toward the Molo, with the doge’s palace to our left, and the two Columns of Justice to our right. In the lagoon before us, men were already removing the poles of wood that had been designed to form a stockade against any Hungarian invasion. It was in this place, months earlier, that I had seen a man being burned to death. Today’s scene was little better, for now a cage had been suspended between the two columns, and within this cage was a man who was being starved to death. His legs and arms dangled hopelessly through the bars, and his head flopped to one side. As we stopped to look, a man pushed past us and then winched a bottle of water into the cage.

  “Why are they giving him something to drink?” I asked Giovanni.

  “So that he doesn’t die too quickly.” When I recoiled at this explanation, Giovanni threw me a look of disapproval. “He killed a child, Oswald. He deserves to die.”

  “But this is a cruel way to execute a criminal. Don’t you think?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You don’t do such things in England?”

  I thought back to the executions I had witnessed in London and Rochester, and knew that I should not complain at the quality of Venetian justice. “Not this particular form of torture,” I said. “But I suppose we have our own versions.”

  “At least this man had a trial,” he said pointedly. “Not like some.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Giovanni looked over his shoulder, and then whispered into my ear. “Some criminals are strangled. Silently.”

  “Why?”

  He rested a hand upon my arm. “Because they are the enemies of Venice. They are spies or traitors, and nobody knows that they are dead until they wash up in the Assassin’s canal. Their bodies are . . .” He struggled for the correct word. “They are cut up. Do you understand?”

  “You mean mutilated?”

  He smiled. “Yes. I do. Mutilated.” He said it again. “Mutilated. That’s a good word.”

  “Is it?”

  Giovanni dropped his smile and crossed himself, before dusting down his cloak and quickly changing the subject. “So, Oswald, will you tell me where we are going now?”

  “Just follow me,” I said. “You’ll know soon enough.”

  We pushed against the crowd of people who were disembarking along the quay and making their way to the many stalls that lined the Piazza San Marco. Small children darted among us, and for a moment I thought that I glimpsed a familiar face—it was the boy who had led me back to Ca’ Bearpark for two soldini on the night of Enrico’s murder. He was still hanging around the house with his troop of ragged friends, so was it possible that he had followed us here? Or was his just another dirty face in a crowd of dirty faces? I put the thought from my mind as the great campanile of the Piazza sounded the nona for midday, reminding me that time was passing quickly—too quickly.

  Leaving the Piazzetta, we soon reached the small bridge over the Rio Palazzo, and it was here that Giovanni stopped in his tracks and refused to move. “Are we going into Castello?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He appeared to stamp his foot. “No, no. I cannot go into this sestiere. It is a place for the coarse and the dirty.”

  “I don’t care.”

  His face froze with indignation. “Why? Why must we go into Castello?”

  I couldn’t refrain from smiling. “To visit one of Enrico’s friends, of course,” before adding, “just as your master wanted.”

  He gave a huff. “You think these friends are here?”

  “I know they are,” I said. “Enrico often drank at a particular tavern in Castello, and sometimes I accompanied him.”

  Giovanni faltered. “But, but we need to find . . .”—he began to whisper—“a different type of friend. You know that.”

  “One of Enrico’s circle of friends was his lover. Margery confirmed that in her testimony.” Giovanni wrinkled his nose and shrugged at my assertion. “You read the letter yourself, Giovanni,” I said, with some annoyance. “Margery saw Enrico with this violent man on the Feast of Saint Stephen. It must have been somebody from his circle, as otherwise what were they doing in the house?”

  Giovanni shook his head vigorously. “No, no. Enrico’s friends were from good families. They were all noblemen.”

  “So was Enrico.”

  “It could have been a secret visitor?” said Giovanni. “Or even a servant?”

  “A servant?” I raised an eyebrow. “So, you think that Enrico was murdered by somebody that you employed?”

  Giovanni’s face froze in horror. “Of course not. I’m very careful about the servants that I choose.”

  “Then come on. Let’s speak to one of his friends.”

  As we walked along the Riva degli Schiavoni toward the Molo, we passed many galleys at anchor—their masts like a great forest of standing oaks. Across the lagoon the island of Giudecca and the monastery of San Giorgio were outlined against a pale blue sky. I stopped for a moment, for Venice could be so disarmingly beautiful, but then I thought back to the slave gang, and the rotting man who was hanging in his cage above the Piazzetta, and I remembered that there was poison beneath this perfection.

  We soon turned from the Molo into the narrow lanes of Castello, where the water in the canal changed from a pale blue into the green lustre of a bluebottle’s breastplate. We had lost the open vistas and cheering sunlight, and now found ourselves inside a cluttered cupboard of people who existed in some of the darkest and most overcrowded conditions in this city.

  As we made our way along the streets, we stood out immediately as strangers—just as we had done on our visit to Burano. The eyes of Venice were upon us from every angle. Men stopped their carts to observe us, while women pushed their washing aside to look down on us from their first-story windows. A group of girls, gathered about the solitary well head in the middle of their campo, broke away from their scheming huddle to watch us pass. Their leader had a striking face—beautiful, but severe—and I let my eyes rest upon her for a moment longer than was polite.

  Giovanni shoved me in the back. “Don’t look at them,” he said. “Keep walking.”

  “They’re just girls,” I said.

  He scowled. “Don’t be fooled, Oswald.” Then he muttered something under his breath that I think was “she-devils.”

  After dodging a group of boys who were throwing a leather ball against a wall, we came, at last, to our destination—a tavern that advertized itself only as a hostelry by the group of men laid about its door in various stages of inebriation.

  Giovanni stepped back with revulsion. “You came here?” he said, as I forced him to step inside a stuffy, poorly lit chamber with benches spread about the floor.

  “Yes,” I said. “What of it?”

  He dusted down his cloak and took a deep breath of air, as if to brace himself for a fight. “Who are we looking for, Oswald?”

  “One of Enrico’s friends,” I said. “I know that he drinks here. His name is Michele.” I paused. “But I’m sure that you know him too. He was a regular visitor to Ca’ Bearpark.”

  Giovanni nodded lightly and then flicked his fringe from his eye. He knew Michele well enough. Who could forget the man with the striped hose, long feathered cap, and habit of rearranging his bollocks in public? “And why are we starting with Michele?”

  I felt uncomfortable at this question. For how could I admit the truth? That I had decided to start with Michele, because he was the most effeminate of Enrico’s circle. A man who wore the brightest, tightest clothes, and seemed the most interested in fashion and the curl of his hair. “I think Michele is hiding something,” I said loosely. Then I tapped the purse that hung from Giovanni’s belt. “Have you brought any money with you?”

  Giovanni ten
sed at this question. “Why?”

  “We may need to pay for this information.”

  When Giovanni tried to object, I walked on, swiping away the smoke until I found Michele, elegantly lounging in a corner with one hand on a bottle of wine and the other, predictably, down his braies. As we approached, I gave a loud cough, in the hope of rousing the man; but when this approach had failed for a second and even a third time, I pressed my foot against his leg and gave the fellow a quick shove. At this, Michele jumped to his feet with the instinct of a startled dog and drew a knife on us.

  When he recognized me he returned the blade to his sleeve and laughed. “Oh, it’s you. Silent Englishman. What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to speak to you, Michele,” I said.

  His smile waned. “What about?”

  “Enrico Bearpark.”

  Michele looked at me for a moment with suspicion, before sitting down again on the bench. “I hear that my friend is dead.”

  Giovanni and I shared a glance. “Yes,” I said. “Enrico died three nights ago.”

  Michele gave a short, derisive laugh. “Don’t tell me he died. I know he was beaten to death by robbers at the Giovedì Grasso.”

  I exchanged a second glance with Giovanni. So this was the story that was circulating? “It might have been robbery,” I said.

  “What else could it have been?”

  “That’s what I’m investigating.”

  Michele let another smirk cross his lips. “You? The Silent Englishman. Why would you be investigating anything?”

  I tried not to be provoked by this. “Enrico’s grandfather has asked me to look into his death,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I have experience with such investigations.”

  Michele took a gulp from the bottle and then wiped the red residue from his lips. “I don’t know why you want to talk to me. I had nothing to do with Enrico’s death.”

  I took a seat beside Michele, leaving Giovanni to stand awkwardly behind us, with his eyes fastened to the floor. Even in this light, I could see that my companion had colored, and when I looked across the smoky chamber, I could see the cause of his embarrassment. A figure in a far corner was waving to him—it was a woman with a very low neckline to her gown.