The Assassin of Verona Read online

  ‘That was my grandfather’s,’ observed Marco Venier.

  ‘Your arrogance is unbearable.’ Cosimo Tiepolo spoke from a face hot with choler. He felt the eyes of the silent guests on him and fought for composure.

  ‘You claim to know this city but you are a cuckoo, no more,’ said Cosimo.

  ‘I am not born of the city, true, but I know its mood better than you do, peacock. And if a cuckoo, then all I have done is push out a basilisk egg that, left untouched, would have devoured the whole brood.’

  A low, delighted muttering was running round the crowded guests for William’s words were well aimed. All understood that this William Fallow, the English Ambassador’s man, spoke of Cosimo’s brother Francesco Tiepolo, so recently declared traitor by the Council of Ten of the Signoria of Venice and fled the city under sentence of death. If rumour were to be believed - and when was it not - this William was responsible for the charges. His jibe at the brother seemingly confirming it. Only William and Isabella among the guests knew that the charge of treachery against Francesco Tiepolo was false. Or that William had arranged it to see justice done against Francesco for what William thought a far greater, far fouler crime against Isabella that would otherwise have gone unpunished.

  ‘All you will know of this city is two strides’ length of it and one stone,’ answered Cosimo, stepping forward, his hand moving to the dagger at his belt.

  Marco Venier stepped in front of him. ‘Gentlemen, calm.’

  The thin-lipped Crow spoke up: ‘Perhaps these two would consider a contest and a wager on it?’

  ‘Capital conceit,’ said Marco Venier, his hand on Cosimo Tiepolo’s arm, feeling the tension in him.

  ‘What stakes could this man offer that would make me shift?’ sneered Cosimo.

  ‘I have a thought,’ said the Crow.

  William saw the gleam of the lamp on the corner of the Canal Grande and San Maurizio and struck out north along the smaller canal. In moments he could no longer hear the sound of the other man swimming. There was an instant when he thought he heard the sound of feet running, but then silence fell. William was alone.

  The time may have all shadow and silence in it

  William hauled himself from the water and looked about.

  He had re-entered the Canal Grande by the Palazzo Lando. A glance to his right showed him the Campo Erberia, empty at this hour, to his left revealed no sight of Cosimo Tiepolo. Either William had pulled far ahead of his challenger or the man was already out of the canal and making for the Hunchback. Haste was called for whatever the answer.

  William ran across the Campo and past the great brick edifice of the Church of San Giacomo di Rialto. Ahead, opposite the church, was the statue of the Hunchback, crouched in the shadow of the steps that ran up its back. William touched it, as those about to embark on a voyage did for luck. He spun about, listening. Where was Cosimo? In front of him the great clock on the front of the church pointed to the eleventh hour. The Campo was silent. William understood in that moment that he had been a fool: there was a reason that Cosimo Tiepolo was nowhere to be seen. When Cosimo had realised William no longer followed hard behind he had simply stopped and waited. If Cosimo vouchsafed that it was he had touched the Hunchback first and then returned, what judge would gainsay him?

  Cursing himself for a foolish honest man and the Tiepolos for their treacherous nature, William turned and ran back to the Canal Grande. His only hope now lay in Cosimo’s need to guess a plausible gap of time in which to have reached Rialto and returned. The only way to be certain of that was for Cosimo to sit and wait where he might see William returning and then, full-fresh from his rest, dive in and finish the race, ahead of William. William met the canal’s edge and once again dived into the water and pulled hard.

  His strokes no longer cut cleanly through the water, anger made them shake and shudder. He turned once more from the Canal Grande at the Palazzo Lando. His strong intent was all bent on speed, on remembering his route, and he did not hear the footsteps again running beside the canal nor the splash of another diving into the water. The first he knew of the danger was when an arm pulled him beneath the waters.

  Then is sin struck down like an ox

  The hand grasped William’s leg and heaved. His head dipped and he took in a draught of the foul canal water. Hands grappled his body and dragged him down. William kicked furiously up to reach the surface. He coughed and drew a hasty breath before he was pulled back down below. He twisted in the murk of the canal and wrestled for the arms of the creature holding him. Heat built in his lungs and he fought with all his will not to open his mouth.

  Hands pressed against his throat; though what need there was to strangle him when the waters of the canal would drown him he could not think. He almost laughed at the absurdity of it, of his double murder, strangled and then drowned. At last his hands found the arms that held him and felt their way up with an urgent angry caressing that reached shoulder, then neck, then jaw until they came to embrace the face of whatever man it was held him. He dug his thumbs into the eye sockets. At once the waters thrashed about him and he was released, thrust away. William kicked for the surface.

  The two men burst from water into air at almost the same instant. The still night was rent with the sound of deep heaves and flailing arms. William drove for the canal’s bank and pulled himself on to the street, coughing, heaving, hacking for breath. He had risen to one knee when the boot caught him in the ribs and lifted him away. He rolled with the blow and cracked into the wall of a building. He looked up to see the sole of a boot, water cascading from it, driving at his head. He kicked hard at his attacker’s rear foot. Planted as it was, that leg, when William’s foot caught the shin, toppled back and the kick that would have dashed William’s brains from him skittered off against the cobbles instead, to the music of a howl of pain from his assailant.

  William rolled to one side and gained his feet, grasping a loose stone from the ground as he did so. His ribs ached but the pain was not so sharp as to make him think them broken. Two yards from him a figure, as sodden as William, limped around to face him.

  ‘Francesco Tiepolo.’

  ‘The same, William Fallow, the same Francesco Tiepolo that you have slandered and driven into exile.’

  The proud youth who had once strutted before him and threatened vile deeds against Isabella Lisarro now cut a pathetic figure. It was not just that his former finery was gone, replaced with plain weeds besmirched with mud, a matted and sodden hood to hide his golden mane. His hollow cheek and haunted eyes spoke of the price of failure. William revelled in the signs of the punishment that he had brought on Francesco’s head. There was no mercy in him for this one, this man who had threatened his beloved Isabella. Francesco’s eyes held the fixed look that spoke of courage taken by the glass. How had he returned to Venice? The Signoria should have taken him before this moment.

  Francesco drew a knife. William’s breath still came in heaves and he looked about for a refuge that might buy him a moment to recover. ‘Will you add to your capital crimes, Francesco?’

  ‘I have been exiled from Venice. Do I fear death now?’

  As he spoke Francesco advanced on William. He brandished the knife before him and William watched it snap back and forth like a flag in a strong wind.

  Francesco lunged but William was ready. He had seen in Francesco’s wafting blade a fighter in want of experience. William blessed his friend Hemminges, who had trained him to fight, for a hard taskmaster and a shrewd one. William let his arm drift in front of him as bait. Francesco lunged to cut it and as he did, William struck. He pushed aside Tiepolo’s blade and swung the stone from the street to crack into Francesco’s temple, felling him like an ox.

  For a moment William stood over the senseless figure. Then he put his foot on the villain’s side and made to roll him into the canal. A hand gripped his arm.

  ‘You are not turned executioner yet, William.’

  William did not look round at Hemminges’
voice. He took his foot from Francesco’s side.

  ‘You were watching?’

  ‘Always, but lost you when you turned aside from the Canal Grande. As must this one have done.’

  ‘What will you do with him now?’ William asked.

  ‘Time’s wasting, Will,’ was all Hemminges’ answer.

  William tore his eyes from the prone man before him to look on Hemminges’ face. He grinned at his friend, then turned and ran to the end of the street and dove again into the murky waters of Venice.

  There is a plot against my life

  William now swam cleanly again. It was as though the desperate battling in the waters had let the anger from his blood. Thoughts congealed in the cool of his mind.

  Cosimo Tiepolo had known of the feast at the Ca’ Venier and that William would be there as a guest. The Tiepolo brothers must have laid their plans accordingly, Cosimo provoking William, threatening a duel that became the prompt to a wager that drew William out, alone into the dark and silent canals of Venice. Yet, wait, was it not the Crow that suggested the wager? Who was he to the Tiepolos? A chance taken or an actor in their scheme? William thought back to when he had first strayed from the Canal Grande to take the crooked route to Rialto. Had he not heard footsteps running? The sound of Francesco forced to alter the place of his ambuscade.

  It was a bold plot. Why not the hired villain’s dagger in the dark? No, that was not Francesco’s way, William realised. He wanted to be in at the kill, to taunt and to boast, as he had sought to do when he threatened Isabella. It was that selfish desire to gloat that had drawn Francesco Tiepolo back to Venice, in defiance of the order of exile. How our character exposes us, William thought.

  What followed? What followed? William’s stroke slowed. A hundred yards ahead he could see the buildings part and the moment when his path would take him from the smaller side canals back on to the Canal Grande. He slowed more and let his strokes become shallower and the more silent for it. William was no longer thinking of haste to return to the Ca’ Venier. He knew now how it was that Cosimo intended to gauge the right time: he waited for his brother’s report of a murder achieved.

  Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder’s rages

  Cosimo crouched on the jetty ahead like a raven on his perch, shrouded even from the moon’s light by the shadow of the Palazzo behind. In the quiet of the night William’s movement through the water carried out to the crouching man.

  Is it done?’ Cosimo’s voice came back across the night in a harsh whisper. William made no answer.

  ‘Is it done, Francesco?’

  Still William made no reply other than to draw closer, stroke by stroke.

  ‘Francesco, are you injured? Why don’t you answer?’

  Cosimo’s voice now had a note of fear in it. William carried on with a steady, even pull. He drew alongside, then past the jetty where Cosimo waited and on. His path took him from the shadow of the buildings. He heard the gasp of recognition and the shout that followed.

  ‘Fallow!’

  Over his shoulder William called back, ‘Too late, Cosimo. The course is run, the victory won.’

  ‘Where is Francesco?’ his brother cried.

  ‘Where?’ William stopped his motion and turned to where Cosimo now stood on the jetty. He trod the water and called out, ‘Behind. By Campo Sant’Anzolo will you find him, or at least his body, his soul may already be in Hell. Yet, he was not dead when I left him, if you hurry you might save him yet.’

  Cosimo let out a cry of rage and William laughed.

  ‘Of course, if you do, you will certainly lose this wager and then it follows, lose Venice too. Which will it be, Cosimo? A brother’s love or a mother’s embrace?’

  William turned and set out again for the Ca’ Venier. He had a lead of twenty yards and there was a chance, a chance at least, that Cosimo would look to save his brother rather than himself. An angry cry and the sound of Cosimo hurling himself into the water put an end to that hope. To think of others was not the Tiepolo way. Now, for victory against the weight of his tired and bruised limbs, William had to count on his small lead and on Cosimo’s own joints being stiff from an hour of cramped waiting, wet and cold.

  The two men swam towards the light of the balcony. A hundred yards from it they heard a watcher’s shout go up and then a babble of voices.

  ‘They are returned!’

  ‘Who leads?’

  ‘Nothing either way.’

  Cheers rang up and William heard his name and that of Cosimo Tiepolo hurled into the night air by the excited guests. William’s lead was cut to nothing. His arms swung like dead men from a noose, wrung out of life. He could see Isabella and Marco Venier press their way to the front of the crowd on the balcony. Isabella clutched the rail with both hands.

  The last was to climb the walls to the balcony. He and Cosimo reached the stones of the Ca’ Venier at the same instant. William reached up to the lip of one of the corner stones and hauled himself from the water. In sudden motion of his own, Cosimo struck out and latched on to William’s waist and heaved. William was thrown back, the two men spun in the water, Cosimo pushed down on William’s shoulders, driving him deep into the canal’s water, even as he thrust away. William burst back above the water to see Cosimo already at the wall, the guests above crying their delight at the battle below. His head was a hammering drum of pain. He reached the wall and began to climb but Cosimo was a body’s length from him and already reaching for the base of the balcony. William sprang up and caught Cosimo’s leg. Cosimo kicked back but William clung on as a drowning man to a rock. William unhooked one arm and clutched at the wall, planted his feet and pulled up. Now they perched, face to face, each clinging to the imperfections of the wall by a single hand, the other hand locked in battle with their enemy.

  William felt his strength gone: that last surge of heat having propelled him forward had left naught behind for further contest. Cosimo’s eyes held William’s and gleamed his triumph. He bent William’s arm and, groaning out at his victory gainst the frustrations of the night, began to force William away from the wall. William felt his fingers slipping. Then Cosimo’s face and voice transposed from a cry of triumph to a scream of agony. The sharp heel of a woman’s chopine peeped through the balcony’s pillars and pressed down upon the back of Cosimo’s hand. He let go his hold on the base of the balcony and plunged away into the canal. William did not pause to reckon at redemption’s cause. His fingers cramped and the shoulder of that arm Cosimo had wrestled with was a twisted rope of agony, torn as it was wrenched from Cosimo’s grip as he fell. He hauled himself up in agonised movements and more fell than climbed over the parapet. He rolled on to the floor and from his back looked up at the guests gathered about him.

  ‘Am I the first?’

  Marco Venier looked down at him and then out over the parapet. ‘And the last by the look of it. It seems Cosimo sets course for new worlds.’

  ‘In that at least, he shows honour,’ said William, and then burst into laughter that became in turn a fit of coughing and hacking that drove the other guests from the balcony back into the warmer comforts of the Ca’ Venier. The last but one to turn and leave was the Crow. His eyes on William’s prone body glittered with malice and there was a moment when William thought he might find another stamping foot descending on him to add to Francesco Tiepolo’s at the canal. Isabella’s voice sprang up.

  ‘Your name, sir?’

  The Crow looked up from William to Isabella and the malice in his eye flared brighter and promised violence but the moment passed and with it, but without answer to Isabella, the Crow turned and left. William pushed himself to his knees.

  ‘Your shoes, Isabella,’ he said from his bent stance, ‘become you well.’

  William stood up.

  ‘I have been very foolish, Isabella.’

  ‘As always. Foolish and brave at the same time. The sin of youth.’ Isabella ran her hand across William’s forearm. A long gash lay open in the sodden linen, st
ained with blood. ‘I take it there was more to this race than swimming.’

  ‘So it played out,’ said William. ‘If it had not been for you and Hemminges ...’

  He left the rest unsaid for Isabella had grasped him in a sudden embrace. She clung to him and whispered in his ear. ‘I was so afraid, William. So afraid, to be alone. If you had lost...’

  He felt her tears fall on to his shoulder and he brushed her hair with his hand, not caring that he spoiled its delicate arrangement with his damp caress. She pulled back and, putting her own hands to his face, drew him to her, granting him a fierce kiss that thrilled with the passions and terrors of the night.

  ‘Come. No more foolishness tonight,’ she said. ‘Let us make our excuses to our host and be gone. You must rest and recover your strength.’

  ‘Willingly, for I hope I shall need it.’

  Isabella rolled her eyes once more but she did not contradict him.

  The fields are fragrant, and the woods are green

  Verona

  Aemilia put her hands over her heart and sighed.

  ‘You like it?’ asked Valentine.

  ‘Oh Valentine, would that we too could live as the lovers in your verse do, freely.’

  Valentine came and sat beside her on the stone bench. She looked at the pure pleasure on his face at her praise and returned that look with pleasure of her own. His words were as beautiful as he. She had feared that she was to spend her whole life in her father’s palace surrounded only by the old, the martial and the stern, with their dry talk of livestock, politics, or the disciplines of war. Now Valentine was here and Valentine was wonder and the promise of a different future. His long blond hair was gathered back from the fine bones of his face and the morning’s light gave his blue eyes the lustre of gemstones. He dared to take her hand in his. The two youths were as close together as they had ever been, closeted from the cold of winter and the prying eyes of maids within an arbour in the palace gardens.