The Assassin of Verona Read online

  ‘Your poem,’ Aemilia said, letting her hand remain in his and joying at its bold touch, ’speaks to me of your great soul.’

  ‘It speaks of yours, Aemilia, for you are its inspiration.’

  ‘I think a little of the inspiration lies with Catullus,’ she answered.

  ‘There was some of Catullus in it, true,’ he said, his face turned from hers to gaze out across the garden. She had meant only a gentle jibe, and to mind him that she too knew her poets and their verses, but his hurt frown and hand withdrawn told her she had struck deeper than she meant.

  ‘Don’t pout, Valentine. It makes you frown and that mars your beautiful brow and you know it is chiefly for your looks that I dare my father’s wrath.’

  ‘You sport with me,’ answered Valentine, hurt look still perched upon him like a bruise on an apple.

  ‘I do. Oh, Valentine,’ she said, ‘I spoke only in wonder at your art. To see you take a master’s words and turn them to a greater purpose still.’

  A tilt of his chin told her that whatever hurt her first words had caused him, these new ones had been a balm, that he saw she did not mean to slight him for wearing borrowed garb but praise him as an heir to greatness. She reached out and took his hand to draw him back. He was so delicate a soul, as all great poets are, she thought, and she must not forget that she, lacking a mother, had sensibilities formed by the blunter company of her father and his soldiers.

  ‘I am still honing it,’ said Valentine. Aemilia nodded and concealed a little smile to see her flattery win him round to her again.

  ‘What gave you its conceit?’ she asked to draw him out.

  ‘I thought on the news of outlaws in the woods outside the city. How they grow in number and of how some talk of their villainy, their cruelty, and their lawless lives. I hear these tales and think only of how they live far from the cares and constraints of our gentler world. Sometimes these palace walls seem to me a prison.’

  He threw out an arm to gesture at an unseen place beyond the garden’s walls.

  ‘There are they free to live as they wish, to love as they wish, wanting only soft grass for a bed, sweet water from the stream to drink and the sun to warm them.’

  Valentine’s fair brow was furrowed with fierce desire as he spoke. Aemilia thrilled to hear his passion. The following pressure of her hand on his brought his look back to her. He put his other hand on hers to hold it closer.

  ‘I would that we were there, Aemilia. I would that my poverty did not keep me from your father’s favour.’

  Aemilia sighed again. ‘You would give up all comfort?’

  ‘What comfort is there, Aemilia, to sleep on soft sheets and drink sweet wine, if it means you and I may not be together? Rather old bread and the nettle bower and you. Sometimes love demands a sacrifice and for your love I would sacrifice all.’

  His face was close to hers and she could smell his sweet breath, oranges and cloves mingling with her own scent of roses. The world seemed very still in that moment, no leaf whispering in the wind, no bird’s song breaking the silence, just Valentine, his hands around hers and the trembling beat of her heart. Oh what a wonder it would be, to cast off duty, to take a lover and to live freely in the woods.

  Gravel crunched underfoot. Aemilia snatched back her hand at the sound of her maid’s approach but she could not take her eyes from Valentine as he hurried to stand at a more seemly distance from the Duke’s daughter. His look was full of promises as it held her own and her thoughts lingered on the freedoms of the forest even as her maid led her away to dress for dinner.

  Let’s not confound the time with conference harsh

  Venice

  ‘We must leave,’ Hemminges said again.

  ‘No. I’ll not hear of it,’ William answered. ‘There is little pleasure in such a course and much travail.’

  William sprawled across a long bench beneath the window. One arm, wrenched by Cosimo Tiepolo’s fall, he held stiff against his chest. The other, bandaged from the cut received two nights before, held an apple. He had yet to take a bite from it, but played with it instead, making it spin. His mind seemed all held in that game though he, Hemminges and Oldcastle sat in conference on matters of great moment.

  They were in the main room of the House of the White Lion where the English Embassy was lodged. Hemminges had moved into the rooms that William and Oldcastle had once shared, now that William had found another, more convivial, lodging with Isabella. He was still a frequent visitor, for the food was better and Oldcastle’s company greatly to be enjoyed. Hemminges was out in the city almost as often as William himself and they saw each other seldom, save that twice a week Hemminges kept up his lessons with William in fencing and fighting, which William endured because he had grown to like Isabella’s appreciation for their effect on his frame.

  William had questioned Oldcastle where their friend went and was told that Hemminges had made friends with a fencer of the Niccoletti, one of the factions of Venice that engaged in sportive battles on the Ponte dei Pugni, the Bridge of Fists. ‘Made his friendship in the traditional manner of men, my boy, by beating him in an arm-wrestle. And hence the two exchanged martial talk as if dear John were not a player now but a soldier still. He tells me that these Venetian fencers have an art with the single stick that is much to be admired. Judging by his own cracked knuckles and bruises, that is the kind of admiration John feels they have earned. He prattles some nonsense to me about bridges and galleys being alike narrow and demanding a special skill at fighting, an art with the sword that is suited to the small space of battle. I confess he lost me early but I did not like to look uninterested for fear he’d turn his talk to demonstration.’

  William thought Oldcastle wise for it explained many a cruel new trick that Hemminges had shown him in their lessons. The owner of the House of the White Lion and their host, Salarino, still looked on Hemminges with a fearful eye, which William thought wise also. It was not just that Hemminges’ solid frame could be made to move with a deadly grace, but that Hemminges held up a moral line more straight and unswerving than any builder’s plumb. Wisdom or fear be Salarino’s motive, in the result it meant for the Englishmen great comfort at little cost, as Salarino bustled to keep Hemminges happy.

  To this incentive Salarino had added one of his own. He had set himself the task of converting Oldcastle from doubter to proselytiser for the food of Venice. As the three Englishmen argued, small dishes of fish, balls of rice fried in spiced oil, unknown vegetables dressed in vinegar, were laid before the throne of Oldcastle’s liking. To these offerings Oldcastle would respond with a regal nod. He consumed all that was put before him with a noisy relish, save only the onions in vinegar, at the sight of which he curled his lip and pushed that plate from him.

  ‘There is little to please in a knife ‘tween the ribs either, Will,’ said Hemminges.

  ‘Or in hanging ‘tween the columns on the Piazette di San Marco,’ added Oldcastle through a full mouth. The unfamiliar Italian words caused a foam of food to form across his lips.

  ‘You overplay the dangers, both,’ said William, smiling at Hemminges’ worried look and Oldcastle’s unhappy one. ‘Our guise as England’s Embassy has withstood the Signoria’s scrutiny. If they or the Council of Ten know we are not who we claim to be then they have chosen not to act on that knowledge. Why should that change? As for knives in the dark, who is left to wield them? By your own report, Francesco Tiepolo is mortal wounded and he and his brother are fled Venice. They should thank God for your merciful nature, Hemminges, for I would have called their crimes capital. And for the Pope’s assassin, Prospero, he is passed into the Doge’s prisons.’

  ‘That is the safety of days, not weeks. God’s blood, Will, but the dangers gather. You think the Tiepolo will forgive you when Francesco dies? Nor will the Pope sit idle. By your own report there is the question of how Francesco came back to Venice and the Signoria all unknowing of it, and the mystery of this Crow you spoke of at Venier’s feast. Even if we d
o not see the Pope’s hand in this, since the news that England is now in open war with Spain at Antwerp has reached Venice, to be securely fitted to our disguise as England’s Embassy but increases the danger to us, does not prevent it.’

  Hemminges planted his fists on the table top. ‘If we have bought a space of time in which we are secure then we are best advised to use that time wisely and make for home.’

  William sprang from his seat and plucked the wine glass from a protesting Oldcastle’s hands and held it out to Hemminges.

  ‘Wine, Hemminges, food beyond measure.’ He gestured at the window beyond which could be seen the Canal Grande. ‘A city of golden wonders beyond these walls. Leave this for England? We were a ragged crew there, Hemminges, or have you forgot? You’d have us fly from paradise to purgatory. That is not the normal order of things.’

  ‘This is not paradise, William.’ Hemminges shook his head. ‘This is Eden and that business with the Tiepolo brothers is the eviction notice already posted on the gate. Our time here cannot last. The only way to stay here forever is to be buried here.’

  ‘Better dead in Venice than half-life in England.’

  ‘Boastful words. Have we not received word from England that we must return and explanation make? Do we not owe a duty? Does our pardon not lie in safely bringing back our intelligence? Have you forgot that we must take back to England the names of the papal spies?’

  ‘I have not.’

  ‘Those names were bought at a high price, William.’

  ‘You think I have forgot it?’

  ‘I do wonder at it.’

  Oldcastle reached up and took his wine glass back. He took a long swallow in the silence that followed while William and Hemminges glowered at each other. Oldcastle tapped the back of William’s hand to signal that he should pass the wine jug.

  ‘It surprises me that you should be so reluctant to return home, to wife, to family,’ Oldcastle said.

  William sat back down. He did not look at either Oldcastle or Hemminges but out of the window at the city. ‘I cannot leave.’

  ‘She will understand,’ said Oldcastle. His voice was soft. He filled another glass and pushed it over to William. ‘In her occupation, the passing of men is as inevitable as the passing of years.’

  William looked up, lightning in his eyes, thunder in his tightening jaw.

  ‘This is not business, Oldcastle.’

  ‘I did not say it was, Will. I remind you only that the lady thrived before your coming and will survive after your going.’

  ‘It is not for her sake that I cannot leave. Though, God above, I would not be just another patron to take my pleasure and then cast her aside.’

  William drew breath to say more, then halted. Hemminges and Oldcastle waited.

  William was thinking of Stratford. Its small concerns and shopworn worries seemed remote from him now. If he thought of Stratford at all, then it was to wonder how his children were. How they would marvel at the stories he would tell them of France, of Savoy, of Venice, of waking to the sound of boats knocking at their mooring outside his window, of August heat so strong it lifted the gossamer curtains of his room on air made visible. He might speak of the smell of fish, spices and wine rising through the air and of the sounds of the Venetian dialect wafting up with them. A city so different from Stratford and the damp of Warwickshire, the stink of mud and goats, of petty gossips and mundane business, as to seem not just a different country as a different world. He could see his daughter, Susanna’s, face, little mouth in an O of awe, as he spoke of gondolas, of St Mark’s Square as the clock struck eleven and the merchants gathered from across the world, Slovenians, Poles, Greeks, Jews, Turks, Germans and all in their traditional show, buying and selling, shouting and talking in as many languages as there were men.

  Such thoughts turned to guilt in a moment for he knew that he would not be able to speak to Susanna of the greatest wonder that he had found in Venice, Isabella Lisarro. Oh, but he would wish to do so. To tell Susanna how she might master her own destiny even compelled to obedience to the lives of others. How the life of the mind might roam as freely as a bachelor did, tasting as it willed, where it willed. When he spoke to others of Isabella they smiled and nodded at him, knowing she was beautiful, and he longed to blast their knowing looks down and tell them that it was the poet in her that he loved. That men were not such simple creatures after all and they did themselves disservice to pretend all his interest was swinish and base.

  If such country matters had been all his care, then he’d enough in Anne, his wife. Yet it had not been. He and Anne should never have married. He had been too young and stupid to give her her just dessert. He could not tell if he had trapped Anne in a prison of domesticity or given her the keys to her own kingdom. Marriage had seemed to take her to a different place, but not one to which he wished to go with her.

  Guilt to stay, guilt to leave, marriage was a bond and a shackle. How then could he say to Hemminges and Oldcastle, leave, when all his living was here, in Venice?

  William turned to look at his friends. ‘I cannot leave her, for my own sake. I cannot leave this wonder of experience.’

  Hemminges sighed and pushed himself up from where he loured over the table.

  ‘Winter has come and must pass before we can travel in ease. We will stay till the spring.’

  Oldcastle smiled and nodded. After a moment William did the same.

  ‘But come the spring, we must go.’

  ‘We will talk again in the spring, Hemminges,’ said William, taking a bite from his apple at last. He sprang to the door like a schoolboy released from lessons and was gone.

  ‘If we live till spring,’ muttered Hemminges at his back.

  Outside the House of the White Lion, a man in a hat whose style spoke of Rome worried at his teeth with a pick. When William emerged and walked lightly away, he followed. Hemminges was not the only one who did not wish to wait till spring.

  Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace

  From the balcony of Isabella’s house one could see along a narrow ravine of houses to the lagoon beyond. The sun was setting and the canal waters sparkled with Promethean fire, the rose colour of the houses caught the flames and glowed in its turn, the evening was mild and full of sweet scents.

  William sat upon a bench on the balcony with his feet upon the balustrade and looked not at the splendours of Venice but only at Isabella. She wore a simple dress and her feet were bare. Shorn of her splendid armour of jewels, gowns, artfully piled tresses, she looked as he imagined Venus would were she to grace a mortal life with her presence. Showing her wonders, by their simplicity, divine.

  She spoke out loud a poem she had written. She looked up from her paper to gauge his response. Seeing his look of love Isabella laughed. Her laugh turned to a frown.

  ‘No woman could meet such weight of expectation as lies in your eyes, Will,’ she said.

  ‘I know. I thank the heavens they have sent me instead a goddess.’

  Isabella coughed and took a sip of wine to soothe her throat and cover her laughter.

  ‘I am no goddess, Will. I break wind as others do.’

  ‘As zephyrs blowing below the violets do.’

  ‘My hair is turned to old, red wires.’

  ‘Copper strands, which as we know, best conduct the heat of passion’s fires.’

  ‘My skin that once was cream and rose is turned to curdled whey.’

  ‘The better that it may nourish me, I say.’

  ‘Enough!’

  Isabella smiled at the young man before her. Such energy of youth, it would have exhausted her were it not that it gave back in full measure all that it demanded. This boy was both too bold and too wise for her good sense but she would not part from him. At last she was with a lover who did not want her simply to adorn his arm or admire his wit but looked at her as she truly was - and, better, seemed to see her as she wished to be. That was a rare wonder in this world. Isabella wondered at the kind God who had s
een fit to send her this reward for her hard life that had been lived in the service of others and always perilously close to destruction.

  It was strange, passing strange, that it should have been her old lover, Prospero, the Pope’s assassin, that should have brought them together. Prospero, a man she feared and who had given her cause to hate men, to hate their selfishness and brutality, had brought her this lover, a poet, a man with rare understanding and gentle heart. She looked at his dark eyes and thought again, as the first time she had seen them, of their promised wisdom.

  ‘This cannot last, William.’

  William did not look at her. ‘Hemminges speaks of our return to England. Declares it must be so when spring comes.’

  Isabella leaned her head back against the wall of the house and looked along the canal. She thought again of how the lapping of the waters on the walls was the whispering of an enchantment, a promise of magic in the sound.

  ‘Would you come with me?’ William asked, his voice so quiet she barely heard it.

  ‘To England? Where would I live, Will? With you and your wife and children? What do? How speak? In Latin or Italian?’ She gave a mirthless laugh and shook her head. ‘Oh God, Will, this is but a dream, soon we will wake from it and see all dissolve.’

  William made no answer. They sat in silence, listening to the evensong of the canal’s waters, the tapping of the boats at their moorings. Long minutes passed before Isabella, a great shiver running across her as if she threw off some ghostly touch, spoke again.

  ‘Come inside, the chill air heralds the coming of winter. You men may run hot but we women suffer in cold times.’

  ‘I run hot while you are here. Nor do I fear winter’s coming, for you are like a summer’s day to me.’