Lucifer's Shadow

46 The Roman magistrate

I stayed with Marchese on the Quirinal, a little way down from the palace where the Pope was in residence, fleeing the heat and malaria of the Vatican. With my mind in such turmoil, I was grateful to discover I had a genial host. Marchese occupied a small patrician mansion with his wife and a single manservant, Lanza. Marchese was elderly, with a stooped back, an awkward gait, and a shock of white hair. Yet his eyes were as bright and sharp and querulous as those of a child. For all his cheery demeanour, I suspect few villains had found their way past this chap in his prime.

I arrived late at night, after two days, each of ten hours, on the road, and was grateful to be offered a bath, fed a good meal, then despatched, exhausted, to bed. The Marcheses had never had children, I’ll warrant, since both master and mistress fussed around as if I were their offspring. It had yet to dawn fully upon me that I was in Rome, with all its sights and possibilities, for I climbed into a comfortable divan on the second floor and fell immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep, waking only when a cock crew and the sun, bright and warming, fell through the curtains.

I spent the morning scanning through Marchese’s manuscript. Leo had his limits — we would not publish absolutely anything. It took only a little while to discover that this particular commission would pose no problem, and could even shift a few paid copies. As a writer, Marchese possessed a slightly rambling fashion, though nothing which a spot of editing couldn’t improve. But he had flare. While there were dull patches, which I skipped, there was much of interest in these tales of city low-life.

Most of those who pay the House of Scacchi to see their names in print do so out of vanity. That smudge of ink upon the page bestows immortality in their own eyes, I imagine, though if they saw the sorry pile of unsold volumes in our cellar, they might feel differently. Marchese did not fit this description. His purpose, as he explained to me, was to set down his methods of investigation in the hope that others in his trade might learn from them and, over time, find better ways of bringing the guilty to book. To him the law, as it stands, is a random process. On most occasions some hapless victim is first sought out, and only then does the search begin for evidence by which to establish his culpability. Marchese believes the first step should be to establish facts and wonder where they lead, not follow the gossiping throng to wherever it happens to point the finger and arrest the first person with a guilty look on his face. I did not say as much, but this seems to me an idea that is too revolutionary for the Italians, who have hot blood and a thirst for instant satisfaction. The Germans or the English, perhaps, could stomach the slow and painstaking practice which Marchese recommends. I doubt it would satisfy many of those who hang around the side entrance of the Doge’s Palace when a plot’s about and the old man’s temper’s up, counting those unfortunates who go in, then noting how few come out again.

Each chapter had some melodramatic title: “The Tuscan Fragment and a Spray of Camellias.” Or “How an Egyptian Cat May Bark at Midnight.” The magistrate had, however, a higher intent than mere entertainment. He wished to inform his readers of the process he described as “forensic mechanics.” He also believed that by setting down personal characteristics of the scoundrels he apprehended, he would dispel the notion that they were wicked by nature or choosing, a separate species altogether from the average, honest citizen who walks the streets.

“The greatest delusion,” Marchese declared, waving a fat, wrinkled finger at my face, “is the belief that this world must be divided into black and white, the sinner and the righteous. Nowhere is there evidence for such a nonsensical notion. Each argument has many facets, each individual a panoply of traits, some praiseworthy, some obnoxious, and most of them inherited, I suspect. It is how each man selects— or has selected for him — a particular version of events and set of characteristics that makes the difference. I am as close to being a murderer as you. Only fate, a lack of temptation, and, I hope, a certain steel within our character save us from the scaffold. Always beware those who would tell you this world falls into two camps — good or bad. They are either fools or, worse, manipulators seeking to enhance their power by gulling those poor, sad folk among us who crave some distant enemy to explain their present plight.”

He sniffed the air. A most delightful aroma was making its way out of the kitchen. A mountain of meat and potatoes and two small jugs of wine later, we were back in the armchairs. I felt sated and sleepy, and glad, too, that he had taken my mind off events in Venice. Whatever was happening with Rebecca and Leo, however much progress Delapole had made in heading off my uncle from his vile plans, nothing I might think or do in Rome had any consequence.

“Money,” he said, and I covered my cup as he swung a flagon of grappa my way. “I’ll pay the going rate and nothing more. I know you Venetians are the very Devil when it comes to negotiations.”

I had no mind to haggle with this lovable old chap, though I doubted he was short of a bob or two. So I cast aside the inflated price list Leo used as an opening gambit and, to foreshorten matters, gave him the real one, which was, in all honesty, as cheap a deal as he might get of any Venice publisher.

He slapped me gently on the shoulder. “Oh, come, Lorenzo. There’s always space for bargaining in these affairs. How much for cash on the nail, eh?”

I waved my hand, beginning to feel sleepy from the food and drink. “As I said. This is the price, sir. We should waste no more time on these matters.”

He looked at me and sighed. “Do you know? I cannot decide whether you are the most uncharacteristic Venetian I have ever met, or the most cunning of them all.”

“I am a country lad from Treviso, not the city. I lack the wit for all this mental juggling.”

“Hmmm. Now, that I do doubt. You’ve been juggling with me all the time. Thinking of one thing back home while you dealt most professionally with me here.”

I said nothing. I was not to be drawn.

“Very well, then!” He rose from his chair and held out a hand. “Let us put the sordid matter of capital behind us, shake upon this contract, then take a whiff of putrid Roman air. It’s boiling hot out there, my son, but I’ll not let you go without a few of the sights. What do you say?”

I took his outstretched hand. Marchese was the first man of Rome I had ever done business with, and a true Roman he was at that. “I say it will be, like everything else in your company, the greatest pleasure.”

And so we found our way around the greatest city on the face of the earth. With Marchese as my guide, always keen to point out a landmark here, a piece of crumbling statuary there, Rome came alive. I walked with Caesar and Augustus, trembled at the presence of Nero, and stood silent before the Colosseum. I felt like a child in the presence of a generous, kindly uncle who possessed the key to the most wondrous secret garden in the world. By the banks of the Tiber, the old man showed me the former site of the wooden bridge of the Ponte Sublicio, which Horatius and his comrades had so bravely defended against Lars Porsena and the entire Etruscan army. Then he led me to Tiber Island, a ghetto for the city Jews, who had been there under curfew since Pope Paul IV had them herded behind its walls, under pain of death, some 170 years before.

At this last I became thoughtful, which he mistook for tiredness (the old man’s stamina, in spite of his lameness, never seemed to wane provided he paused now and then), and so we returned to the Quirinal.

In the house we chatted idly. Old Marchese scarcely took his eyes off me. Eventually he put down his glass and said, “Lorenzo. Your mind is not entirely upon our conversation.”

“I am sorry, sir,” I replied. “There are personal matters with which I need not trouble you. I apologise if I seem distant.”

“Sometimes these things are best discussed with others.”

“Sometimes. But not on this occasion. Were it otherwise, be assured I would not hesitate to discuss them with you, since rarely have I enjoyed so much congenial company in one day, and with someone who began it as a stranger and ended, I hope, a friend.”

“I should be most offended if you regarded me otherwise. To prove as much, I shall ask you, as a friend, to settle one last quandary which you may resolve at your leisure, in bed, on the coach back to Venice, or later as it pleases you.”

He went to the bookshelf, took out a thick volume, then reached behind it and retrieved a sheaf of paper. When he brought it over, I could see it was written in the same careful scrawl used for the manuscript I had read that morning.

“There is a missing chapter in what I showed you, Lorenzo. Not all my cases were successful, though that is not why I withheld this one. I had wondered whether I should show this to anyone. I still do not know if it is fit for the light of day. You must help me. Read it, and I shall abide by your decision.”

I took the pages, then rose and said good night to him and his wife. The day had been long. Tomorrow’s journey would be tiring. Yet in bed, in the quiet, small room on the Quirinal, I found sleep difficult. I drifted, half-dreaming. Images from ancient Rome assaulted me: Caesar dying beneath a rain of bloody blows; Caligula murdered by his bodyguard; the head and hands of Cicero, butchered by Augustus’s men and displayed for all to see upon the speaker’s platform in the Forum.

Then these ancients disappeared, and in their place I saw Rebecca, naked, pale-faced, and frightened, her hands covering her modesty, apparently unable to speak. We were in her room in Venice, as if it were still the scene of our last meeting when we had argued, and she, I believe, wished to reveal something but lacked the courage or opportunity. I opened my mouth, but no words appeared. Her eyes pleaded for my aid. I was unable to walk towards her. Then, with an effort that made the tears tumble down her cheeks, she lifted a single, white hand from her body, showed me the palm, and uttered four words: “There is no blood.”

I awoke, shaking, as if in a fever.

It was impossible to sleep. Seeking something to distract my confused mind, I reached for Marchese’s manuscript, lit a candle, and began to read.

An hour later I understood the dream and much, much more. With cold dread in my heart, I raced along the corridor to hammer on my host’s door, demanding entrance.