The Venetian Contract (19 page)

The boatman was standing on the jetty now, calling out a word she did not know, in long, mournful, drawn out syllables; ‘
Traghetto
!
Traghetto
!’ Feyra gathered her courage and went over to him. He held out his hand, and she put her coin into it. He gazed at it astonished, and then back at her. Then he gabbled out something else she did not understand.

Panicked, Feyra just pointed at the coin and him. He narrowed his eyes, shrugged, and held out his hand again. She said, carefully, ‘It is all I have.’

He looked at her again, more kindly. ‘’Tis more than enough. Your hand.’

She held out her hand and he helped her into the boat. He was only the second man in her life to hold her hand.

It was the end of the day and Feyra was alone in the boat. She supposed that just as many workers at dusk crossed from Constantinople to their homes in Pera, so did the people did here, from Venice to her satellite islands. There were no seats in the boat as there were in the punts on the Bosphorus, so when the boatman pushed off from the shore she nearly fell and was obliged to take his hand again. She was freezing despite the coverlet, nauseated by the motion of the water, and exhausted by having to keep her balance. The boatman steered the boat expertly with one long oar, whistling as he went, and it was with relief that she watched the city she had dreaded coming closer. For the moment she wanted nothing more that to be off this boat.

They were to land, it seemed, far from the place where Death had disembarked. Although she could still see the tower that was the North in her compass, it was distant and hidden in part by tall buildings. From her time in Constantinople she knew that the greatest men lived in the greatest buildings. To find the Doge she needed to find
the great court where
Il Cavaliere
had dropped anchor two days ago.

When the boat reached the dock, the boatman leapt to shore to hand her out of the vessel. She nodded her thanks, and he looked at her kindly again. When she took her hand away from his her coin was back in her palm. She turned to protest, but he’d already pushed off again, whistling once more.

Calling down blessings on him, she tucked the coin away and plunged into the darkening streets feeling much more optimistic. Her feet were on solid ground and there was still kindness in the world, even among strangers.

But her optimism faded with the light. This was a hellish place. She would walk for what seemed like hours, only to fetch up in the same spot. Dreadful ghoulish noises bounced from the stone walls, lamplight was refracted by the water and sent back a warped glow to cast dreadful shadows. Mists swirled about her, making it even harder for her to find her bearings. Augmenting the natural sea-mists were man-made fires that belched acrid yellow smoke on every corner that made her cough. Already feeling breathless and trapped by the choking smoke, Feyra felt enclosed by the tall skinny houses and tiny alleyways, unlike Constantinople where the dwellings were low. And here the infidel was ever present: shrines of the baby prophet and his mother were lit by candles at every corner and ragged red crosses were painted randomly on the doorways. And yet, godless trollops lolled in those same doorways; twice she saw women with their breasts bared, leering at the passers-by. Shocked, she averted her eyes only to be met by some more dreadful sight as pairs of figures embraced in the shadow of an archway. Feyra, raised in the Harem, was no
prude; she knew what she was watching. At least the Sultan took his pleasures behind closed doors – in Constantinople one would be stoned for public fornication.

Worse than the human inhabitants were the grotesque half-creatures she saw; birds, beasts and demons seemed to loom from the sickly mists. It took Feyra some time to realize that she was not delirious: the citizens were wearing painted masks. From childhood she had heard the legends that the Venetians were half human, half beast. She knew that this could not be true, but in the swirling fog of this hellish city she almost believed it. The creatures seemed to stare at her down their warped noses, from their blank and hollow eyes. And overlord of all was the winged lion – he was everywhere, watching from every plaque or pennant, ubiquitous and threatening.

Feyra did not know whether she shivered with fear or with cold, for her clothes were still not fully dry from their earlier dousing, and the briny splashes that she’d endured in the strange black boat had soaked her further. As she stumbled from alley to alley, she would, more often than not, fetch up at a dead end, facing another glassy canal, lapping at her feet, mocking her. She’d crossed a thousand tiny bridges until she crossed the mother of them all – a great wooden structure crowded with the malign citizens. It did, however, seem to bring her, at last, closer to her goal. In the twilight she could see the great needle tower once again, and determinedly set her course.

Feyra decided to stay, as far as she could, next to the great channel she’d just crossed, a broad silver canal that snaked through the centre of the city. Once she’d crossed the bridge she appreciated the futility of the last hour she’d wasted. She could have wandered until dawn in the place she’d
disembarked and never found the tower, for it was on an entirely different island, separated by the great watercourse. But with the waterway as her guide, in short measure she fetched up in a vast square. She could see the great tower once again, and the crouching gold church she remembered.

As Feyra crossed the crowded great square, unnoticed, there was another tribulation – the horrid grey birds clustering about her feet, hampering her steps. When startled they took to the wing and flew in her face ruffling her veil with their filthy feathers. She had to steel herself not to run.

At length she reached the tower, thinking perhaps that the Doge might dwell here, for the Topkapi palace boasted the tallest tower in her home city, and the Sultan dwelt just beneath it. But the walls of the tower rose blank and windowless into the mists, topped by booming, unseen bells. The golden church seemed grand enough with all the gilding and the paintings, but it was clearly a temple. That left the great white palace, topped with delicate snowy pediments of stone.

She ventured into the stone courts where a crowd gathered about a giant staircase topped by twin white statues, and she joined the throng. Presently the great doors at the top opened and a stream of servants came out carrying flaming torches and platters piled high with bread. The crowd snatched at the loaves and she could smell the delicious yeasty aroma – her stomach twisted, her mouth filled with saliva. The Doge must be a merciful man to give alms to his people, she thought. A morsel fell to the floor and she snatched at it, stuffing the sweet warmth into her mouth. The bread was so good it brought tears to her eyes. With
renewed strength she saw her chance, and ran up the steps to the very top, where she was met with the crossed pikes of two ducal guards. She said, as clearly as she could. ‘I wish to see the Doge.’

One of the guards looked her up and down. ‘Certainly,
signorina
. I will just fetch him. And would you like a goblet of wine while you wait?’

Feyra was about to decline graciously, when the two men began to guffaw with laughter. Through their still closed pikes she saw a stone lion’s head set into the wall, with a black slit of a letterbox for a mouth. It seemed to be laughing at her too. Desperately, she redoubled her efforts. ‘Please, I must see him,
now
.’

They only laughed harder. Then, into the sudden interested silence that had fallen across the crowd below, she cried, in desperation, ‘I have a message from Valide Sultan of Constantinople!’

They guards stopped chuckling as if struck, and she realized her mistake.

She should have used her mother’s Venetian name.

The word Sultan was enough.

Suddenly afraid, she began to back down the stairs, slowly, carefully, as if to flee would be to break the spell. ‘Are you …?’ one of the guards began, realization dawning.

‘She
is
!’ exclaimed the other, across him.

‘Are you a
Turk
?’

Feyra shook her head, retreating further, the crowd below suddenly still, watching the drama play out on the stone stair. She tripped and tumbled backwards, losing one of her yellow slippers, falling down four more stairs. Her side stabbed and she gasped with the sudden pain and the
sight of the shoe left in the middle of the steps, brightly lit in the torchlight, the yellow shoe of the muslim, with its unmistakably upturned toe.

‘See, the yellow shoe!’ shouted a voice from the crowd.

‘She is a
Muselmana
!’

Feyra picked herself up and ran.

The crowd tore off her coverlet, snatched at her veils and ripped her breeches, trying to catch her for the guards. She pulled away desperately, trying to close her ears to the epithets and insults about her people; such vitriol and hatred against the Turks as she had never heard before. Her veils were soaked with spit, her side bleeding where one of the glass vials from her medicine belt had cracked in the fall. But like an animal pursued, she threw off the grabbing hands and pulled free.

She raced across the square, chancing a look upward as she ran. There she saw a sight to terrify her – emerging from the gallery of the temple were four vast bronze horses, their mouths agape and foaming, their forelegs flailing.

The four horses were already here.

Almost more afraid of them than the mob, she redoubled her speed. The dark alleys and ways she’d feared were now her friends, as she darted away, pursued by the crowds. The two guards behind were hampered by their heavy half-armour, which clattered helpfully to give them away. Not knowing where she went Feyra ran through the night, over a dozen, a hundred bridges. Once or twice she heard the clash of the armour far away or close, fooled by the echoing waters and the treacherous whispering stones. Once, at a deserted canal, pursuer and pursued found themselves on parallel bridges, and for a heart-stopping moment Feyra and the guards were eye to eye. Now she was at a disadvantage,
for they knew the route to her, and she did not know how to evade them.

Holding her bleeding side she chose her direction; and chose wrong. She found herself, once again, at a dead end; a waterway too deep to ford and too wide to leap. She turned, in despair and ducked into a dark little square and here the malign city bested her at last. The square had three blind sides and only one exit, the one from which she had come. Behind her in the alley, the armour clattered closer.

She could run no more. Exhausted, she collapsed and waited for the guards to catch up with her. She shut her eyes, panting, a warm moist patch of her veil pulling in and puffing out of her open mouth with her ragged breath. She prayed, briefly, thinking she had come to the end.

When she opened her eyes she saw an answering gleam of gilt across the square. An inverted V shone out above a doorway, a shape that was both familiar and dear to her. Feyra rose and walked across the square, peering through the swirling mists. She stopped at the threshold of a pair of double oak doors. She had not been mistaken. Above the door, etched in stone and gilded in, were a pair of callipers.

A house with gold callipers over the door
.

Suddenly she heard the cries of her pursuers and the clatter of their weapons. She hammered desperately on the door to match their rhythm, for the alchemy of the streets meant she did not know whether they were a few alleys away or hard by. The door opened, and a man stood there. His greying hair was ruffled skywards in wayward spikes, his thin mouth had fallen open, and a pair of newfangled spectacles dangled from his ink-stained hand.

‘A man
called Saturday
,’ she gasped. ‘I seek a man called Saturday.’

‘I am he,’ said the man, ‘but you may not beg here.’

He began to close the door but she wedged her one remaining yellow slipper painfully in the gap. ‘
Please
,’ she said. She wrenched the horse ring from her finger, searching for the words in Venetian; ‘For this ring. In the name of Cecilia Baffo, your friend.’

The terrible pressure on her foot eased. The curious man looked at the ring, then at her, then past her into the street, right and left, with quick, bird-like movements. Then he grabbed her forearm and pulled her through the doorway.

Feyra could see nothing in the dim candlelight, but she heard the clunk as the oak doors close behind her.

She was safe.

Chapter 16

^‘
C
ecilia Baffo,’ said the man called Saturday. ‘Forgive me. I have not heard that name in years.’

Feyra stopped eating and looked at him. He had a faraway look in his eyes, magnified hugely by the spectacles. He turned to look at her, and the candlelight turned the glass circles to flat gold coins, and she could no longer see his eyes. His thin lips, though, curled into a smile. ‘It’s good?’

She nodded, her mouth so full she was unable to speak. He had brought her a plate ‘stolen from the kitchen’. There was a small loaf, a lump of cheese and some shreds of dried fish, and she stuffed it all down as fast as she could. Feyra knew that she should eat slowly and chew well after her long fast, but she did not care. She had been raised in a palace and yet this was the best meal she had ever tasted.

They were in a small plain bedchamber, with a truckle bed, a chair and a cross hanging on the wall. On the cross the little prophet she’d seen on the coin hung, twisted and dying, with a crown of thorns about his head. She’d deliberately sat on the bed with her back to him to eat her meal, but she was so exhausted, so hungry, so cold, she would have closeted with the Devil himself.