Lucifer's Shadow

53 A refusal and a surprise

It was almost ten by the time I found the rear entrance to Delapole’s rented mansion. The night people were about their business in the narrow alleys that led off the rio: pale faces cooing from doorways, shambling figures falling out of taverns to keep them company. I felt weak in this dark and unruly world. Delapole was a tall, powerful man. Gobbo had the twisted, muscular strength of one of those terriers they turn upon a badger’s sett, then wait and watch as he tears poor Brock to pieces. If I could only talk myself in and out again with Rebecca by my side, I should be happy. Marchese was on his way, past Padua by now, I hoped. With his help, Delapole would be locked tight away tomorrow, on the very day he hoped to be the hero of the Venetian crowds, and we would be gone from the city.

I rang the bell; a surly maid answered and ushered me into the empty kitchen. In a moment, Gobbo was there, surprised to see me. He sat down at the table and bade me join him, shrugging his shoulders as if to say: What can I do?

I refused his offer of a glass of wine. Then he said, “I thought you might have stayed in Rome a little longer, Lorenzo. On your master’s business.”

“I think I have no master anymore. You and the Englishman have seen to that.”

“Meaning what, precisely?”

“That you have seized her. I spoke with the brother. He tells me she has not returned for two days and that soon you will be leaving the city. Not much left for Leo there, and I’m the one to blame.”

“You get this all out of proportion. Seven months we’ve been here, Lorenzo. Delapole gets bored so easily.”

I had to be careful not to reveal how much I knew. “So I imagine.”

“No, you don’t. Not really. Look…” He pushed a glass towards me. I do believe Gobbo genuinely meant me well in some fashion. “Take some advice. You’ve been playing on the rich man’s field, and that’s not the place for you or me. Get out while you still can. This is not a game for amateurs, Lorenzo. You’ll only end up hurt.”

“I placed her in your care, Gobbo. I thought you would save her from my uncle. Now I learn I have simply removed her from a middling fate to one much worse. I learn—”

He banged the table with his fist. “Oh, come on, Scacchi! It’s not that bad. She lives. She’s fed. She sees the world. She writes her pretty tunes and gets some reward from them, even if the old man’s name sits on the cover. It could be worse. She’d get no more from Leo. Less, in all probability.”

The two bargains could scarcely be compared, but there was little merit in pursuing that particular argument. “It cannot work, Gobbo! There will be questions from those who can spot a fraud. He will be asked to play. To conduct.”

“You think he’s not capable? Delapole can make a pretty noise at the keys. As for all that arm-waving stuff… As that French fool Rousseau used to say, it’s amazing what you can accomplish — or pretend to— when you try.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” he interrupted. “You are very slow at understanding people sometimes. It is a dangerous flaw. Do you not comprehend what kind of man my master truly is?”

I did, but dared not let him know it. “An Englishman. An aristocrat. A gentleman, I thought.”

“Pah! Let me tell you the tale from his own lips. When he was a lad— ten, no more — his widowed father married again. A painted bitch — they all say that, I imagine. Still, one night, a month after the wedding, he is awoken by the sound of screaming in the house. He sleeps next door to his father, always has, and rushes in. To find this new ‘mother,’ if you please, astride the old man, riding him for all he’s worth, the pair of them bellowing like animals.”

Something Marchese had said, about the origins of Delapole’s behaviour, came back to me. “What has this to do with us?”

“Everything! He died, you see. The old man’s heart burst, in front of the lad. Two months later it’s apparent she’s with child, too — and not his father’s, if Delapole’s to be believed. Less than a year after, there’s a new son in the household. The firstborn one is out on his ear, despatched to some bog in Ireland with a pittance to keep him. You see?”

“I see he feels wronged by this woman.”

“No! He feels wronged by the world, and that is why he plays these games. You meddle in them at your peril, Lorenzo. He can scare the wits out of me when he cares to, and there’s not many men I can say that about.”

There was no shaking him. Delapole had made up his mind: so shall it be. “When do you leave?” I asked Gobbo.

“A day. Two. No more. After the little show we’re planning at La Pietà which we had hoped would provide some funds. Not that that is going so well. She has no music, would you believe, and says she can’t reproduce it all in time for the performance. Unless we can talk the original manuscript out of Leo and race it to the copyists soon, we’re in a pretty pickle. We’ll have to let Vivaldi play his tunes instead and make some lame excuse for why the sheets are missing. Then find the money somewhere else. They’ll all love us for that, won’t they? I’m sick of turning creditors away from the door. If we’re not gone quickly, we’ll be playing this game inside the debtors’ prison. I don’t imagine you know where he’s hidden it, do you?”

“Leo is his own man. Ask him yourself.”

“We have. He’s as stubborn as a mule. Makes some pathetic excuse about it not being where he put it. As if he expects us to believe that.” He finished his glass, then looked at me expectantly. “I have things to do, old chap. Can’t stay gossiping all night.”

“I need to see her,” I pleaded.

He glowered at me. “You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said. Go now. Forget us all.”

“One time, Gobbo. Then it’s done. I promise.”

He sighed. “I don’t know why I go along with this. If I do this one thing, will you swear you’ll bother us no more?”

“You have my word.”

“You’ll have to see Delapole too. They’re thick with each other at the moment. I’ll talk to him first. So there are no misunderstandings.”

He left the room. I heard murmuring from beyond, in the great hall that gave onto the canal. Gobbo returned and ushered me in. Rebecca sat on an embroidered stool by the window, her back to me, staring out of the window into the night. Delapole stood next to her, beaming as always, looking every inch the kindly English gentleman.

“Scacchi,” he said, and beckoned me to join him. “Your plan has come full circle. Rebecca has found a place in my household and shall see her talents richly rewarded. In all but name — though given these cruel times, that is, I fear, inevitable.”

I tried to see her face, but she kept it turned away from me.

“I would like to speak with Miss Guillaume alone, sir. If that is possible.”

“Guillaume? Oh, you mean Levi? Come. There are no secrets between us anymore.”

“So I see, Mr. Delapole. I would appreciate a moment, nevertheless.”

The Englishman looked down his nose at her and I hated myself. In the candlelight reflected from the window, I could see him for what he was: a cold, cruel man who viewed his fellow creatures as mere playthings, pieces on a human chessboard, to be moved and sacrificed at will. It amazed me I had not guessed as much before. He stared at her and relished what he saw: her powerlessness, I thought. And her beauty, as if he had trapped a butterfly in his fist.

“Gobbo and I have business,” he told me. “An hour, no more. Then I’ll be back. Don’t mistreat my generosity, lad. This is an adult affair, and you’ll have no part in it.”

I bowed my head deferentially. Then, with an arrogant smirk, he swept out of the room, with Gobbo in his wake. She sat with her back to me still. There was no time for such nonsense. I interposed myself between her and the glass, bent down, and took her by the arms.

“Rebecca,” I said. “Whatever you think is happening here, you must, I beg you, flee. Delapole is the very Devil. I have been in Rome and know his true nature better than I’d like. If you stay with him, he’ll take your life before long, and that’s a fact.”

Still she stared outside at the dim lights and the movement on the canal until the anger began to rise inside me.

“Come!” I gripped her arm tightly and tried to make her move. “We must be gone.”

“No!” She broke free and fixed me with a look that was pure hatred. “Why do you torment me like this, Lorenzo? Have I not suffered enough for your jealousy?”

I fell back against the window and closed my eyes. What a fool I was to think I had only to see her in order to win her back.

“Yes,” I said, and she did look at me then. “You have indeed, and for that I apologise with all my heart. But believe me, love. This man is a devil dressed in silk. He has robbed and murdered his way across half of Europe, and tomorrow the city shall have the proof of it. Come now and we’ll be gone from Venice by the time the watch are upon him.”

The cry of “wolf” had been heard once too often. There was contempt in her eyes. “But every man who looks at me is a demon, Lorenzo,” she declared. “Every last one. I have got to know our English friend well these last two nights, since he set out clearly the terms upon which Jacopo and I may keep our freedom, and a crumb of our dignity if we are lucky too. He does not seek to kill me, Lorenzo. He has other ideas than that, though I may wish myself dead when forced to accede to them.”

Her meaning was plain. “Then come in,” I pleaded, “and escape this beast! What reason could keep you here?”

“Because I have no choice! You, of all people, should see that.”

“Once we set foot on terra firma, Rebecca, we have all the choices in the world.”

“How?” The dead, defeated expression in her eyes chilled my blood. “One word to the authorities and we’d never leave Venice. This is an island, Lorenzo. Forewarned, they would catch us the moment we tried to take a boat. And not just me, but Jacopo, too, whom I have greatly wronged by entangling him in this affair. He thought that we were settled, finally, and hates the idea we’ll flee again.”

That much I had seen in his despairing, drunken face. Jacopo always was the most cautious among us.

“In Rome,” I said, “Delapole murdered a mistress who bore his child, the method of which I would not dare tell you. The same in Paris, and Geneva too. This man is deadly, Rebecca.”

Her hand ran through that sea of curls. She gazed at me, nervous, unsure of what to say. “Why should any man do that when all he need do is flee or deny the child?”

“It is in his history somehow. Or his nature. I do not know for certain. I only tell the facts, as they will be revealed when a magistrate arrives tomorrow and demands his arrest. When that happens, we are all in danger, love. Delapole will take whoever he can to join him on the scaffold.”

“With plenty of reason too,” she replied. “Forgery and blasphemy, fraud — for that fine fiddle is not paid for and has my name on the bill of sale.” She hesitated. “And a little whoring, too, when needs must.”

She sought to chase me from her sight with this, and make me flee for my own good. “I spoke to Jacopo,” I responded. “I know what you have done to survive.”

Those dark eyes glittered at me. “You know nothing, Lorenzo. Of who I am. Or what I am capable of. When you look at me, you see some perfect lady. You are much mistaken.”

“I see a woman. One who comforted me in my despair. One who made me see a world beyond myself. One I love, and who carries my child.”

She shook her head. “A child? More nonsense this, Lorenzo?” Yet there was blood in her cheeks.

“No. I saw you in a dream, in Rome…”

“A dream?”

“… which was, I think, my mind’s translation of what passed between us that last time we met. When you were troubled and I was angry. You carry my child, Rebecca, and hide the fact to protect me, when in truth you are the one in peril.”

Her eyes closed. Tears seeped beneath the lids.

“Oh, Lorenzo. If this is true, then all the more reason for me to take Delapole’s offer. What life would we have together with a child? We would be destitute or worse.”

“The life of a man and woman who love each other,” I answered swiftly. “What else might anyone ask?”

“No!” She sobbed before me, and I felt ashamed. “This is not possible. If I refuse Delapole’s bidding, we are all doomed. Jacopo and I, and you, too, if you are so foolish that you stay here.”

“I will never abandon you.”

“Then,” she said firmly, “I shall make you. Please, Lorenzo. If ever I meant something to you, go now, flee the city and find happiness elsewhere. For none of us shall discover it here.”

“He will kill you, Rebecca!”

“Then it will be over with, won’t it?” she answered severely.

The look on her sweet face horrified me. I fell to my knees and took her hands in mine. “Do not say that!”

Then, as if for the last time, Rebecca leaned forward and embraced me. I felt her damp cheek against mine. I held her tightly, but not tight enough, for she withdrew and wiped away the tears from her face.

“A woman of my kind must learn tricks in order to avoid this fate,” she said, not looking at me. “One must make a man happy but prevent the consequence that happiness so easily brings. You made me forget those skills by allowing me to realise there could be happiness on both sides too. And your sweetness and your innocence reminded me that once I came from the same mould. Now we both know the outcome. If I can convince Delapole the child is his, perhaps he’ll show a little mercy.”

“He’ll slit your throat and rip the unborn infant from your body, as he did in Rome.”

Her cheeks went pale. “So you say. Then let us hope this magistrate of yours comes knocking for him tomorrow and a miracle saves us from his wrath.”

“The only miracles are those we make ourselves, Rebecca! Come with me now. Be safe.”

“Safe? None of us is safe as long as he walks free. Tomorrow. If he is in chains. Then we could take to our heels and hope we’re out of the city before he points his accusing finger at us.”

“Now!”

“I cannot,” she replied. “Nor must you ask me anymore. Go, Lorenzo. If there is some God, perhaps he will take pity on us, for all our sins. Quick,” she declared. “Before they return and guess what’s up. I play at La Pietà at this carnival he’s fixed. You may see me there if you are so foolish as not to heed my words.”

I kissed her once, fondly, on the cheek and felt the way she withdrew herself from my embrace. Then I left Ca’ Dario and walked the city into the early hours, planning, planning, planning. When the bell of San Cassian struck one, I made my way back into Ca’ Scacchi, through the dark side entrance of the warehouse, which gave me secret entry. Leo deserved an explanation, and an apology, before he sent me penniless on my way.

I scrambled up the back stairs, went into the main house by the window, and found myself in my old room: the third along on the third floor. The boy from Treviso who, a few short months before, had arrived here excited and unprepared for this new world now seemed a stranger to me. He lived inside my memory, but as another, unfamiliar and unfathomable. I collected a few things I believed would be useful for the itinerant life that would follow whatever transpired the coming day: some clothes, a handful of letters from my darling Lucia, a tiny portrait of my mother. Then I took that silver Star of David Rebecca had given me, which I had removed in anger, and placed it round my neck.

After that, quietly, not wishing to make a sound until I chose the moment, I found my way downstairs. Leo was about, in his cups probably, since this seemed to be his preferred medicine for dealing with adversity.

The fire was dying. A sputtering candle sat upon the table. Sure enough, my uncle was there, a bottle of wine and some glasses before him. He sat slumped, immobile, drunk. This was not an ideal moment for our conversation, but I knew it must take place. I had wronged Leo, imagining him to be that cruel master in the painting across the rio in San Cassian. In truth he was simply a sad fellow struggling to make his way in the world as best he knew.

“Uncle,” I said softly, hoping to wake him, and came from behind to place a hand upon his shoulder.

His body rolled, a strange and terrifying movement. Then Leo’s face turned sideways and fell to the table, his bloody mouth agape, a yawning space where his front teeth should have been. There was gore in his throat. One eye was now a dark and liquid socket. His right hand, the claw, ended in stumps. I felt some cold inner voice inside me start to scream and knew in an instant who alone could have been responsible for this vile deed.

“Lorenzo,” said a familiar English voice in front of me. Delapole’s figure came out from a pool of darkness by the fireplace. Gobbo stood with him, eyes downcast, as if he felt some little shame. “Your uncle was an awkward fellow, to be sure. ‘I do not know, sir. I do not know’ was all the wretched man could squeal, however much we stuck him. And still we lack that manuscript. It is too late now for the copyists. But I will have it. The thing is mine, and I must possess that which belongs to me. Poor Leo said it must be hidden. Now, where could that be, do you think?”

“I do not know,” I answered, and backed towards the staircase which lay behind me.

Delapole’s face came further into the candlelight, yellow and cadaverous in its cast. He wore a sardonic smile. “Oh, such palpable lies, and told to one who has favoured you so! This Venetian toying with the truth appalls me, lad, and does you no good at all. Why, after I’d removed those crippled fingers, even Uncle Leo convinced me he told the truth at last. What good did it do him, anyway? By that stage he was making so much noise it quite offended my ears. And so I took this out to silence the row. Catch, boy! Catch!”

His right arm moved. Some small object flew through the air and brushed, cold and damp and bloody, against my cheek. I thought of that gory gaping hole at the back of Leo’s throat and knew what Delapole had launched towards me. Marchese was right: some demon lived inside this man’s skin, and now it was loose upon the earth.

“Fetch him, Gobbo,” Delapole said, yawning. “We’ll tear it out of that scrawny frame in five minutes and let his corpse confess his master’s murder. Such perfect symmetry. Then it’s plain sailing all the way to Vienna, I fancy.”

The squat, ugly shape of the fellow I once called friend began to move towards me through the shadows, past Leo’s mutilated corpse, travelling as fast as a hound closing on a fox. Without thinking, I said a prayer.