Lucifer's Shadow

50 A hurried return

I could not have blamed Marchese if he thought me mad. At four in the morning, with the sun beginning to rise over the city, I began to tell him, in a stream of tumbling words, of the man I knew as Oliver Delapole and he as Arnold Lescalier, the scar upon the cheek which confirmed their joint identity, and why I must return to the city on the instant. The magistrate listened to me patiently as I laid out my case as openly and honestly as I dared. It was imperative Delapole was stopped and apprehended. But in doing so, I had to ensure Rebecca and her brother escaped the Doge’s net, too, for reasons Marchese could not hear.

As I might have expected, Marchese saw the lacuna in my tale in an instant. “This concerns you greatly, Lorenzo. The man is a beast, no doubt, but not a common rapist. I do not see why you should worry yourself at a simple meeting.”

“The Englishman may be able to make demands of her,” I offered lamely. “And she is vulnerable.”

“Vulnerable? You made her sound a strong character to me.”

“Sir, I recall the way he looked at her when we met. He finds her attractive. Given the opportunity, he will use any means he can to press himself upon her.”

“Ah.” The old man’s face spoke volumes. “You and this lady, then…?”

“Please, my friend. I do not have the time to gossip. I love this woman, and that is all there is to say.”

He placed a finger thoughtfully to his cheek, and I realised how formidable a foe Marchese must have been to those he had pursued. Nothing escaped his attention. “Yet Lescalier… Delapole… whoever he is… This man will meet many women in the course of a week, Lorenzo. We must report him to the authorities, of course. But I think you should be content that having done no harm we know of, and still unaware we have him in our sights, he will play the part of the English fool a little while yet. Unless…”

I buried my head in my hands, unable to speak.

“Lad,” the old man said, and there was now a note of impatience in his voice. “I cannot advise without the facts.”

He was right. I was acting like a child. I thought of our last meeting and the way Rebecca had struggled to tell me the truth and, in the end, failed to summon the strength, dismayed by my own coldness. I thought of the dream. Her single outstretched hand and those four words: There is no blood.

“The facts…” There were none, only guesses, yet they had now achieved such solidity in my head I knew them to be true. “I believe the facts are she is with child. My child. And the picture that repeats itself in my head is that she uses this in order to resist his advances, with consequences we may both imagine.”

The old man’s complexion turned quite pale. He gripped me by the arm. “Good God, Lorenzo! Are you sure? For this changes things mightily.”

“I believe it to be so, and that she wished to tell me before I left, and instead fell into an argument because I—I—urged her speak to the Englishman for help upon a private matter!”

He groaned and a look of hard determination came upon him. “A child… Well, you know how much he thinks of that. At least you believe you do, though what I set down on that paper was but a tenth of what I saw and learned. Had I told all, none that read it would sleep again for fear that he might pass their door. This man is the very Devil himself. We must stop him!”

“But how?” I pleaded.

Marchese had the plan already set in his head. “It is more than three hundred miles by coach from here to Venice. I shall take the first seat I can find, and be lucky to reach there after midnight tomorrow evening. Can you ride?”

“I grew up on a farm, sir. Show me the saddle.”

“Excellent! My neighbour keeps a decent nag. I’ll pay him well for it. You’ll take the mountain route by Perugia to Ravenna on the coast. Then ride to Chioggia. See if you can get a boat there. With luck you’ll beat me by a good six hours or more.”

I followed him to the door, where already he was yelling for his neighbour to get out of bed and ready the horse. It was a fine Rome morning, with a light breeze and a few wisps of feathery cloud in the sky. A perfect day to ride like the wind. A dark, bearded face appeared at an upstairs window next door and threw a few half-hearted curses down at us.

“Come, Ferrero,” Marchese bawled back. “Out of your pit and help a man do justice in this world!”

Soon the fellow was with us in the street and, to his credit and that of Marchese’s, too, did just as he was told once the magistrate barked out his orders. As the bell of the Pope’s summer palace tolled six, I was ready to depart and eager to face the road. Before I could, though, Marchese gave me some final, earnest advice.

“Lorenzo,” he said. “When you arrive, go straight to the watch or a magistrate. Tell them this lady of yours may be in grave danger and they must ensure her safety. Tell them, too, that a magistrate of Rome follows on to confront this murderous villain with his deeds and set the wheels of justice in motion. Once they hear me speak, and see my papers, his head’s upon the block, believe me.”

I looked into his eyes and said nothing. This situation was too complex to offer answers. I could not do as he said, not until Rebecca was safely out of the clutches of both Delapole and the city. He saw my hesitation and seemed, for the first time, afraid.

“Listen to me, son. I know this man. I have seen his handiwork. Tackle him alone, and he’ll skin you alive on the spot.”

“Yes, sir” was all I said, then leapt into the saddle and spurred Ferrero’s lean piebald mare down the street.

As I rode I laid my plans as best I could. It was out of the question that I should go to the watch and alert them to Delapole’s past before Rebecca and Jacopo were clear of the city. Until Marchese arrived with evidence, they would more likely believe a supposedly moneyed English aristocrat than two Jews and an orphaned apprentice who had all but deserted his master. With his cunning, Delapole could have turned the tables on us instantly, revealed the nature of our all-too-real crimes, then fled with whatever loot he had beneath his arm. My first aim must be to find Rebecca and keep her safe, then help her flee before this precarious fabrication of deceit tumbled around our heads.

At Chioggia I left the panting horse and talked my way on board one of the fishing skiffs that sail each hour from the port across the lagoon to dock at the fish market on the Grand Canal and unload their catch. On their way they could drop me on Cannaregio’s southern limit, near San Marcuola, and from there I could be in the Ghetto Nuovo within minutes. With these instructions issued, I found a resting place in the back of the boat, fashioned a makeshift bed out of my jacket, and fell sound asleep to the lapping of the waves against the little vessel’s hull.

When I awoke some two hours later, we were wending our way down that broad, busy waterway I had come to know so well. A few yards to my right and a little further on, I could have strolled into Ca’ Scacchi and asked my uncle how he fared. Delapole’s relations with him must have reached a pretty state too. As had mine. Whatever future lay ahead, it was not as a Venetian printer’s apprentice.

The small sail that had taken us across the lagoon was now furled, so we made our way through the mass of vessels by oar, ducking and weaving. We passed the narrow channel of the Cannaregio canal. My heart stirred at the thought of Rebecca’s presence nearby. Then the boat hove into the jetty by the church and the captain bade me farewell with a friendly curse and a thump on the back.

I leapt the short distance to the landing and found myself on solid ground once more, as solid as it gets in Venice. Then I strode through the tangle of back alleys until I came to the bridge where I had first entered the world of the Jews. The guard yawned and waved me past. Once out of sight and across the campo, I took the steps to Rebecca two at a time. To my amazement, the door to their home was half-open. I pushed it back and saw Jacopo as I had never witnessed him before. He was slumped at the table, a flask of wine in front of him, eyes glassy, quite drunk.

“Well!” he cried. “What do we have here?”

My heart froze. He was clearly quite alone. I walked into the room and closed the door behind me.

“Jacopo. Where is Rebecca? It is vital that I see her.”

A bitter laugh was my only answer. Then he picked up a spare cup on the table and poured some wine into it. “Vital, eh? Not so quickly, lad. We’ve time to make a toast, eh?”

I brushed aside his hand. Jacopo’s eyes were full of hatred. I could feel my well-made plans begin to crash to the floor.

“Where is she? Please?”

“Please? Oh, come on, Lorenzo. A toast. Rebecca and I have found good fortune at last. For, within a matter of days, we’ll be on the road once more, like little lapdogs, following that English friend of yours. She writes the notes, he puts his name upon them, and I just follow in their wake. So generous of him to talk that out of her, don’t you think? Although he had a little weight behind his elbow.”

He spoke in riddles. “I don’t understand,” I said. “You plan to leave so soon?”

“We are Mr. Delapole’s new household, don’t you know? To supply whatever he needs, and I fancy that’s more than fame and fortune. He’s got a roving eye, that one.”

I took him by the shoulders. “He is not the man he seems, Lorenzo. We cannot let him near her.”

“Oh! Now Delapole is not the man he seems. I thought that was your uncle. With whom, I have to say, I negotiated a fine agreement before your man got in the way. Old Leo would have done us proud: to publish and stay quiet, until she found herself able to make her authorship known. A penny-pinching chap, perhaps, but an honest one, Lorenzo. You judge him wrong. And in his place…”

I thought for a moment that he might strike me. Yet Jacopo was above that, even in his present condition. Instead he grasped me roughly by the collar and pulled my face in to his. I could smell the wine stink on his breath.

“In his place we now have the Englishman,” he said. “Who knows everything about us and will reveal it all unless we do his bidding. Oh… damnation!”

He launched the pewter pot against the wall and cursed me vilely. “What gave you the right?” he demanded. “To barter with our lives this way?”

“I thought Leo might take her from me,” I answered, not entirely honestly, and needed immediately to correct myself. “I believed he might have thrust himself upon her in return for his patronage.”

Jacopo stared at me, incredulous. “Leo! He lives in his dreams, Lorenzo. Can’t you see? And besides, if my sister thought that was the price of her deliverance, who were you to decide otherwise?”

This question outraged me. “I am the one who loves her!”

“Hah!”

“I am the father of her child,” I said quietly.

His face reddened with fury, then he seized the mug he had poured for me and claimed it for himself. “This madness gets worse with every moment. Be gone, Lorenzo. Your presence offends me.”

“Delapole is a villain and a murderer! We must not let her near him.”

“A little late for that, lad. I have not seen her since we visited him, at your suggestion, two days ago, and listened to every order and instruction that he laid down as the price of staying outside the Doge’s clutches. Perhaps she packs his trunks for him, Lorenzo. Yes, I think that is it. She is his housemaid. For tomorrow he reveals himself as owner of the muse, and soon after we all depart for different climes, I know not where.”

My spirits sank. Such images ran through my mind. “She would not willingly give in to him…” I began to say.

“Oh, child!” He was now furious. “Your innocence is more galling and more dangerous than a thousand criminals combined! Do you still not know us, Lorenzo? Do you still not realise what we are?”

I wished to stop up my ears. I wished to be out of that room, and stood up to leave. His powerful arm dragged me down.

“You will listen even if I have to pin you down upon the floor! How do you think we fled Munich and survived when so many others perished? And did this same trick in Geneva? What separates us from all those other Hebrew families in this ghetto? Our looks? Our manners? Or our history?”

This small, dark room now seemed oppressive. Its drapes and hangings threatened to close in and stifle me.

“You are drunk, Jacopo,” I said quietly. “You should sleep, and speak again when reason has returned to your head.”

“Reason never leaves me,” he answered bitterly. “I would not dare allow it. So tell me. How do you think a woman, a fair one at that, escapes a room of soldiers come to kill her? How does a pair like us throw off our pauper’s cloak and fit ourselves out in velvet?”

“I will not hear this!”

He grabbed me by the shoulders and spat the words into my face. “You will listen to every word! What do you think I dispense on these night visits to the middle-aged ladies of the Republic? Just a potion? Or a little comfort after, bedding painted matrons? Lorenzo, we are the very picture of practicality. We’ll earn our living as best we can, in what small space you Gentiles allow. And when that doesn’t work, we’ll whore our way out of trouble and scurry for the next stop on the road. Though I had hoped this was an end of it.”

These words rang true, for all their hated resonance.

“If Rebecca sees an opportunity between the sheets with your Englishman, that is her decision. Not yours. Or mine. Necessity is a harsh mistress, Lorenzo. You heed her words or pay a hefty price.”

He had said his piece and not enjoyed it. Jacopo Levi regarded me with the sullen misery of drunkards everywhere, loathing himself as much as he loathed me.

“All of this may be true,” I answered. “But I cannot wait to hear it. I have intelligence of this man from Rome, Jacopo. He is a murderer, of the most vile kind.”

“Your fantasies are fast becoming tedious, lad,” he murmured. “Be gone. I had fancied myself a little longer in this city and resent the fact that you have changed my plans. You are a meddler and a fool and think you may excuse both by being well-meaning in your intentions. You bore me. Go. I have drinking to do.”

“Jacopo—”

“Go! Before I lose my temper and do something I’ll regret!”

So I left him there, with his black thoughts and his wine and his emptiness. The sun was almost down when I began to make my way through the streets. Night stole upon Venice. The moon’s face shone from the filmy black surface of the canals. I slipped through the darkness like a thief and raced south, to Dorsoduro and Ca’ Dario.