The Vault of Bones (42 page)

I walked on towards the campanile. There was a shout behind me and a clatter, and I looked back to see a table overturned and an angry man set upon by the table-owner's footpads, hidden in the crowd until needed, as always. And there, to one side of the strugglers: a man in a yellow tunic, who stepped quickly behind the pillar that held up the lion as if hiding from me. And he was hiding, I realised. He had seen me notice him, and clumsily dodged out of sight. Someone was following me.

I was so surprised that I just stood there and took another bite of sandpiper. This is ridiculous, I thought. He'll peep out from behind that pillar in a moment. And so he did, like a child playing hide-and-seek with a younger boy who has not quite grasped the fundamentals of the game. But perhaps secrecy was not at stake here, and all he needed to do was get close enough to stick something sharp through my liver. I dropped the last sandpiper and dodged into the throng that filled Saint Mark's Square.

I tried to seem nonchalant as I wove and barged my way through the back-ways of San Marco towards the bridge at the Riva Alta, following the river of Venetians through the Calle del Fabbri and then through the square in front of Saint Salvadore's Church. A gaggle of tarts were arguing on the bridge there and cursed me in their rasping slang as I shoved past. Then I found myself in the midst of a busy cloth market that had all but blocked the alleyway beyond. Finally I turned a corner and saw, at the far end of a small square, the two halves of the Quartarolo Bridge writhing like trapped snakes. A big, deep-water galley had just rowed through and churned up the water, and its wake slapped against the stone walls of the Grand Canal, each slap making more wavelets that rushed to the canal's middle, where they fought one another and the poor, soaked wretches who were stoically drawing the bridge together. The pontoons bucked and twitched, the ropes snapped, went slack and snapped again, and inch by turgid inch the flimsy wooden causeways approached each other, jumping and nervous, like two horses brought to stud.

They were making a meal of it, the bridge-men. It would be minutes yet before anyone could cross safely. And the street behind me was filling up with Venetians, chattering and squawking at each other like a flock of gaudy starlings. I glanced back and saw that the square was bursting with a crowd anxious to cross over to San Polo and too idle or poor to pay for the ferry, which in any case was lurking on the far side, its boatman too lazy or spiteful to row through the waves. Then I saw the follower: a flash of cowslip silk at the corner of an old church.

Frantically I pushed my way to the front of the crowd, past more quarrelsome tarts and some young rakes in garish striped hose. Another glance behind me: the follower was at the last corner before the street opened on to the waterfront and as I watched began to shove forward, not caring any longer if I noticed. In front of me the bridge-men had got their bucking pontoons under some degree of mastery and were heaving the two sides towards each other. Two yards of fretting green water separated them. I saw very clearly what I would do next, and it surprised me so much that my head had no time to argue with my legs. That was fortunate, as they had begun to sprint at full tilt over the flagstones and on to the heaving, slippery planks of the bridge. Suddenly I felt weightless as the wooden causeway yielded beneath me, banging with every footfall. I might as well be running on the waves themselves. The bridge-men's mouths were hanging open like empty feed-bags.

'Keep pulling those fucking ropes,' I yelled in English. The bouncing of the planks was forcing my knees up into my chest as I ran and I knew I would fall if I slowed even a little. But I would have to plant my feet for the leap. The ropes were slack in the hands of the bridge-man, who was fighting to keep his balance, and as I crashed towards him he dropped them and grabbed at me. I saw his huge hands in front of my face and open water ahead and then suddenly, incredibly, I was in the air. The other bridge-man stepped aside and I was across, skipping like a stone along the twisting, rearing causeway. I had solid ground beneath my feet when I staggered to a halt and turned to see one bridge-man in the canal, his mate heaving him towards the planks, and a cheering, jeering crowd on the other side. The two halves of the bridge were drifting apart once more. And there, fists on hips at the edge of the water, a slight young man in a wondrously shimmering tunic of yellow Venetian silk.

Chapter Thirty-One

F

or a moment I felt as light-hearted as a child who has scored some little victory over a rival. I wanted nothing more than to taunt my follower, but crushed that urge and instead slipped into the nearest side street. I was beginning to get the hang of the city, and allowed myself to become half-lost, all the while heading roughly northwards, checking at every corner for any sign of pursuit. But there was none, and soon I began searching for the Campo San Cassiano, which was not too hard, for I followed the most furtive-looking men, and soon I was back in the square of brothels, where the tarts were still touting their wares, and the men were still gazing aloft, rapt, as if God and his angels were descending from the heavens.

The hunchback let me in to The Trapped Eel, and I hurried upstairs to find Letice.

‘I’ve been followed’ I told her breathlessly. 'Here?' Her voice was sharp.

'No, no.' I told her what had happened, and how foolish my pursuer had looked, stranded on the wrong side of the canal.

'Describe him’ she demanded. I did, as much as I could: blond, fresh-faced, a dandy.

'Sounds like Righi’ she said, scowling. 'One of the Querini bravoes. You were marked, all right. And they did not follow you here? You are sure?'

I was, for I had been taught well in such villains' crafts these last few years. 'He was making it bloody obvious’ I added.

Well, he is not the cleverest of God's creations’ said Letice. 'But even so ...'

She was interrupted by a clamour from downstairs, men's voices raised in anger, and women's shrieks. Letice rubbed her cheeks in vexation.

'This bloody place’ she muttered.

What is it?'

'Drunken men in too much of a hurry to get their eels trapped’ said the girl wryly. 'It is always so. Do not worry. Luchas the Hunchback will see to them - beat their brains out, most likely. Christ, I hope we do not have to stay here long.'

But the noise did not abate. It grew in ferocity, until I opened the door and stuck my head out on to the landing. We were four flights up, but I could hear doors being hammered upon, and outraged cries from disturbed revellers.

'Something's wrong’ I said. 'Quick - is there another way out?' Letice shook her head. I could see a blue vein darken in her temple, so pale had she become.

'One staircase. The roof - too far to leap to the next building.'

I looked out of the window. It was a long drop into a narrow canal, and who knew how deep it might be? No escape there.

We'll have to go down’ I told her. 'Perhaps they won't recognise us. Because it must be Querini's men, mustn't it? Quick - tie up your hair, and ... and put these on.' I picked up my travelling clothes from the floor and flung them on to the bed. She looked at me for an instant, about to speak, and then in one motion she turned her back on me and pulled her robe up over her shoulders. I caught no more than a glimpse of her long back, as white and supple as cream poured out from a ewer, before I wrenched my head away. When I turned back, she was draped in the ugly, salt-stained things of black fustian, busily stuffing her tresses into my dark coif. But such thoughts I had had meanwhile, thoughts I could not keep away, that had swarmed and bitten like midges, a thousand tiny ghosts that were the shards of one shattered spirit. How I loathed this room.

Take this’ I said, unhooking Thorn from my belt and holding out the hilt to her. She reached for it, and stopped.

‘You take it’ she said.

'No. You. I am ... I'm stronger than you. The knife will make us equal’ She bit her lower lip, and grasped the green stone of the hilt. Our eyes met, and, like the first pangs of sickness or the hidden stab of joy when the hidden meaning of a thing reveals itself, I felt as I had those many months ago, when she had looked up at me from the floor of Baldwin's chambers in Rome. The curve of her long lip, the perfect sculpture of her nose ... all at once, the tormenting ghosts were gone, and I was alone with Letice in an empty room, just a room where people had lived, fucked and died, a room like every other in the world.

‘I am ready’ I told her. 'Are you?'

She nodded once, briskly, and, holding the knife by the scabbard, tucked it up under her left sleeve and curled her fingers over the hilt so that it was hidden. I looked around the room, spied the big, crude chamber-pot and snatched it

'Right then’ I said, and opened the door.

There was pandemonium going on below us, and I led the way down towards it, fast, taking the stairs two at a time. The first landing was empty, and I did not pause, but grabbed the banister and leaped down the next flight. There was a man coming up towards us, red-faced, holding a club of bog-oak. He had time to look shocked before my foot caught him under the chin and he fell backwards, arms out, into space, and then into the wall at the bend in the stairwell. He lay still, head crooked. I picked up the club in my free hand, for the man was insensible or dead, and kept moving. I could hear Letice behind me, the stiff cloth of her clothes rustling but no words, no sound from her lips. Around the next corner another man was puffing up the stairs, but he was stark naked and red as a robin's breast, and so we pushed him aside and kept going down.

I could hear a loud female voice. It was high, but as tightly controlled as the others were panicked. 'By what right?' it said. 'By whose authority?' Mother Zaneta, apparently, was having none of it. There was a piercing yelp beside me. Through an open door, I saw a big man with a scratched face pinning a young whore against the wall by her throat. He was fumbling somewhere between them: going either for his knife or his cock. I took two strides across the room and slammed the club across the back of his head. He buckled, his face smearing blood down the girl's breasts as he fell.

'Don't waste time!' hissed Letice. I grimaced: she was right. We abandoned the girl, who was picking her tormentor's purse, and charged down the next flight of stairs. No one there, and the doors were either shut tight or open to reveal empty rooms. There was a peal of cursing and then barked orders from below - the ground floor. We had come to it. I paused and looked at Letice. She shrugged and bared her teeth in a desperate grin. Her face was flushed, the darker red that lies at the centre of a pink rose, and she shook back her sleeve and jerked Thorn free of her scabbard. A laugh that was not fuelled by joy rose like a bubble in my chest. I switched the chamber-pot to my right hand and shrugged helplessly, grinning myself, feeling the fingers of madness upon my face. With Letice at my back I hurled myself down the stairs. We turned the corner together, and ran straight into the young man in yellow. His hands were empty, and he took one look at Thorn and fled with a clatter, with me treading upon his heels. We reached the downstairs hall together. I had time to see Facio, sword drawn and laid casually across his shoulder, and another man; and Mother Zaneta, who was staring them down like some ancient martyr facing the pliers and the saw.

Then the boy, in his panic, pitched headlong into the man next to Facio, who fended him off with an indignant shout and sent him flying into the old woman. The two of them fell in a tangle, and a cacophony of shrieks and laments rang out, for now I saw that beyond Facio a huddle of girls clung to each other, shaking and whimpering in fear. Facio had whipped around and I found myself surging towards the gently wavering point of his blade. I had no time to stop, but reflexively put up my right hand to cover my breast, and the gaping mouth of the chamber-pot swallowed the sword point. The sword was stout but the pot was stouter, and did not break; but its heavy bottom banged into my chest and stopped me short. Facio drew back his blade to strike again and without thinking I hurled the pot at him. He got his hand up and the pot glanced off his knuckles and smashed into the side of his face. He staggered and, awkwardly, wildly, I swung the club with my left hand and bludgeoned him on the ear. He went down awkwardly and I sprang forward and stamped with all my weight upon his crotch. The other man had meanwhile tugged out a hideous short sword, more a cleaver than a sword, and was raising it to chop me down when there was a flash of quicksilver beside me and the man's arm opened to the bone -I glimpsed its blood-netted yellow - and he dropped the cleaver with a scream.

Instantly Letice struck again, stabbing him in the upper shoulder. He flailed with his good arm and caught her wrist, twisting it. My foot was caught between Facio's legs and as I tore myself free and brought up my club, the man's knees buckled and he fell in a heap. Behind him stood a whore, a long-handled copper kettle in her hands. She raised it up and hit him again, and then, as if some terrible mechanism had been triggered, the kicking body was being belaboured from all sides by women wielding fire-irons, pots, clogs, even a wooden stool. The boy in yellow had got to his knees, but Mother had him by the collar. I raised my club, but saw in time that he had no weapon and was a boy, younger than me, and weeping in terror.

Tie him up!' I yelled at Letice. Everyone was yelling now save the men on the floor, for Facio was doubled up in agony and his companion would never make another sound. She nodded as if in a fevered trance, eyes showing white all around. I straddled Facio to keep the whores from him while Letice bound the boy’s wrists together with his own belt and forced his head down to the floor as he sobbed and shook in a palsy of terror. I held out my hand to Mother Zaneta and helped her to her feet. Then I bent down and hauled Facio up by the neck of his tunic until he was sitting, his face ashen, panting with the pain of his crushed stones, eyes screwed shut. I took hold of his hair and shook him until he opened them. He did not seem to recognise me. I shook him again.

'Remember me? From Tiber-side? Querini sent you to find me, did he not? Tell me!' I was mad with rage; my spittle was flecking his cheeks. He shook his head, then nodded.

It was you who killed Anna .. ‘ He tried to shake his head. 'No, no, you charnel rat’ I told him urgently, 'you did: you rode her down in Cheapside and broke her skull. You trampled her face into the mud ...' I had twisted his hair so tightly around my fingers that they had gone numb. He was wincing in pain, but still he held my gaze. 'And Horst - do not shake your head at me, filth! - the man you butchered in Foligno. And the boy in Spoleto, when it should have been my head on the flagstones, what about him?' 'Petroc’ said Letice, quietly.

'No! He will tell me why!' I shook the club under his nose, then threw it away in disgust.

'Letitia?' gasped Facio, seeing her for the first time.

'Good morrow, Facio. Why did you come here?'

'To take you and this one to Messer Nicholas. You were seen coming into Chioggia. I thought he was chasing ghosts

'Ghosts? No’ said Letice. 'Nicholas wouldn't waste time on ghosts.'

Why?' I pressed. He panted and shook his head. 'The letter?' he winced. 'Baldwin's letter. Christ, you know better than I.'

'No, you do not understand’ I said, all the fury suddenly draining from me. Why? I want to know why.'

'Gold, what else?' he said, eyes narrowing. He was almost master of himself again. 'Oceans of gold. See? You
already
know, you fool.'

There was a stillness in the room, a breathlessness. The whores, with their gory, hair-crusted pots and shoes; the hunchback, who had appeared from somewhere, a bloody rag clutched to his head; a customer, who cringed by the fireplace; the boy, whose shoulders heaved, though he made no sound; Facio, who was rocking gently in my grasp, eyes still fixed on me; Letice, who had gone quite pale again, save for a constellation of sprayed blood across her face; and Mother Zaneta. Someone had found her cane, and she was gripping it, standing straight and sombre as a poplar tree. She was staring at me too. Everyone was. I had become the centre of the room. Mother smoothed back her hair, for her wimple had been knocked off, and her heavy tresses, the colour of burnished pewter, had come free. Then she held out her hand to Letice.

'Give it me’ she said softly, and took Thorn from her, almost sweetly, as if prying a rattle away from a tired baby. Then she held the knife out to me.

I still had a hold of Facio's hair. Without thinking I reached for my knife, and a ripple went through the room, a shiver, a scurrying of thought, skittering like mouse-feet. Letice reached for my hand, but Mother Zaneta warded it off with her cane. The green stone hilt did not waver. Mothers eyes were the same green. I took the knife.

Facio set his jaw. He raised his chin and glared at me. I looked past him, at the faces arrayed there: young, smooth, ravaged, keen and simple. Luchas' lips were pulled back like a fox at bay. Righi sniffed, his eyes gone soft, distant, as if he were trying to will himself away from here with all the useless conjurations of a trapped mind. Mother Zaneta drew herself up even straighter, trembling with the effort. A lock of hair had fallen down across her face, making her seem at once a girl and terribly old, a rain-smoothed idol dressed up for some heathen rite. She pushed it away and, closing her eyes, bowed her head.

I looked at Facio. There was nothing much in my own head, I found, save for the memory of Anna as the apoplexy took her, and her fingers as they had scrabbled at my palm and then gone still. There was Horst, teaching me to ride amongst the thistles on the Janiculum hill, and the hollow knock of the poor servant Giovanni's skull against the stones of Spoleto. And now the Captain turned his head to me, eyes swollen shut, the stink of rot about his body. I shook my head and they left, but I still had hold of a mans hair, and of a knife. I did not wish to do this.

Here was Anna’s killer, the half-seen, barely remembered figure on a rearing horse whose face I had strained again and again to make out in dreams and in bitter memories. He was a pale man, tall and thin, whose face bore the deep lines of worry; not very old, but not so young either. He was afraid - the smell of his fear was coming from him like an old fox skin - but not surprised. He knew what we were doing here far better than I did. And he was ready to die.