The Merchant of Dreams (22 page)

“Well, yes, but that’s not the point. If this plan is to work, the Venetians must not suspect us of being here to spy on the skraylings.”

Raleigh sighed. “Very well, I will play your part if I must.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The
Hayreddin
had passed into the lagoon now and was making its slow way towards the distant city. Countless vessels rowed back and forth across the calm waters, from tiny rowing boats to massive oared galleys, single-sailed fishing smacks to mighty galleons bigger than the
Ark Royal
. Beyond them all, the city shimmered above the water like a heat haze, its pastel-coloured buildings as insubstantial as mist.

“So that’s Venice, then?” Ned said, joining Mal at the rail.

“Indeed.
La Serenissima
. The Serene Republic.”

“You seem to know a fair bit about it, considering you’ve never been here before.”

Mal turned his gaze westwards, towards the mainland. “There was much talk of Venice when I fought in the north of Italy. It stands between Christendom and the Turkish Empire, owing scant loyalty to the former and ever at war with the latter.”

“But they are Christians here, Catholics?”

“Of a sort. But they do not like the Pope. The Venetians dislike being under the thumb of any foreign lord, spiritual or temporal.”

“I like them already.”

Mal laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Just mind your tongue, all right? If there is one thing they do not tolerate, it’s insults to the Republic. You think what happened to Kyd and Marlowe was bad? The English are amateurs compared to the Venetians.”

Ned turned pale. The events of two years ago had cast a long shadow over Bankside.

“No one must suspect our business here,” Mal added in a low voice. “I shall adopt the manner of a gallant, that thinks of naught but fine Italian doublets and the latest fashion in shaping his beard.”

“You, play the coxcomb?” Ned burst out laughing. “I shall enjoy seeing that.”

As they drew closer they could make out the main landmarks of the southern side of the island: the pale façade of the ducal palace, the gilded domes of the basilica behind it and, most prominent of all, the campanile in St Mark’s Square, rising above the surrounding buildings like a
digitus impudicus
, defying the world. To the right of the palace, a long quay stretched the length of the shore towards a vast red-brick-walled enclosure at the tip of the island: the Arsenale, the Venetian state shipyard.

“I heard they once built an entire ship in two hours,” Mal said, “whilst King Henri of France was eating dinner with the Doge. Mind you, they have thousands of men working there.”

“They would have made short work of the
Falcon
, then.”

“They do not repair anyone else’s ships. The whole place is locked up as tight as a nunnery, to preserve the secrets of their craft, and all foreign visitors to the city are watched closely.”

“It’s not going to be easy, this job, is it?”

“No, it’s not.”

The
Hayreddin
dropped anchor some hundred yards offshore and Ned brought up their baggage ready to disembark. He deposited it on the deck at Mal’s feet with a thud.

“Where now?” he said.

“We find the English ambassador’s house,” Mal replied, “and give him Walsingham’s letter. After that… I need to see the lie of the land first.”

“Right.” Ned shaded his eyes and scanned the docks. “Well, that answers one question.”

“What’s that?”

“We know the skraylings are here.” Ned pointed out a red-sailed vessel, half hidden behind an enormous brig.

“Either that, or there’s more than one skrayling ship come to Venice in the past month.” It was not an encouraging thought.

Before the jolly-boat could be lowered into the water, the
Hayreddin
was approached by one of the many gondolas plying their trade along the waterfront.

“I take you somewhere,
signori
?” the gondolier called up. “My cousin has the nice taverna, very cheap.”

“Do you know the house of the English ambassador, my good man?” Mal said. He took the letter from his pocket and pretended to read the address with effort. “It’s in the, um, Salizada… San… Pantalon.”

The man’s expression changed very slightly, no doubt recalculating how much he dared charge this wealthy but ignorant milord for his services.

“Of course,
signore
. The district of Santa Croce. How many of you am I to take?”

“Two. And my servant and baggage.”

They climbed down into the slender craft, which rocked alarmingly as if determined to throw them into the emerald-green waters. Somehow they managed to manhandle Raleigh’s sea chest aboard without anyone falling in, and they were soon skimming westwards towards the mouth of the Grand Canal.

The gondolier took them past a succession of elegant palazzos, every one different: plaster painted white or rose or honey-yellow; windows with round arches, pointed arches, with or without little stone balconies; shutters on upper windows thrown open to greet the day or latched tight. In one respect, however, they were all alike. Every one had ground-floor windows protected by thick iron grilles to keep out robbers. Mal had seen similar arrangements elsewhere in Italy, but in Venice the contrast with the airy buildings was particularly striking.

Just as the Grand Canal turned back on itself their gondolier heaved on his oar and continued on westwards down a tributary. The houses here were less grand, though still three or four stories tall with bronze doors and painted plaster walls. A bridge crossed the canal, barely high enough for the gondolier to go under without ducking; it had no parapet, as if the citizens of Venice were so accustomed to the water that they gave it no thought.

A little further on they passed under a second bridge and then turned aside into a yet smaller canal, perhaps twenty feet across. The houses bordering it were more modest in proportion, mostly no more than two or three stories, with simple arched windows edged in white stucco. The gondola snaked around a dogleg bend and stopped at the foot of a weed-encrusted stair leading up to the
fondamenta
, the canal-side walk.

“Here you are,
signori
,” the gondolier said, gesturing to the building on their right. “This is the residence of the English ambassador.”

The house sat on the bend in the canal, a fine specimen of Venetian architecture with walls painted a deep terracotta red and arched windows decorated with white plaster mouldings. Two sides faced the canal, the third gave onto a street that merged into the
fondamenta
, and the fourth was joined to its neighbours. Mal’s thoughts were already occupied with assessing its entrances and exits.

He scrambled ashore, relieved to be back on solid ground again, and waited with studied indifference whilst Ned heave their belongings onto the
fondamenta
. Raleigh paid the gondolier, strode up to the house’s street entrance and rapped on the handsome panelled door. Mal joined him, signalling to Ned to wait with the baggage. Several minutes passed, and Mal began to think they had the wrong address. He was just about to ask a passing Venetian for directions when the door opened and a manservant peered out.

“Sir Walter Raleigh, to see the ambassador,” Raleigh barked.

The servant blinked at them, then opened the door with a bow.

“Please, come in, sirs.”

They followed him into a small but elegant atrium with a floor of grey marble tiles. The servant left them there and made his way slowly up a narrow staircase of the same stone, clutching the balustrade with an age-knobbed hand. No wonder it had taken forever to open the door. Mal wandered over to a gilded side table and leafed through the pile of handwritten notices: announcements of executions, the election of citizens to public office, and all the other doings of a well-run state that might be of interest to diplomats and men of business.

Above the table hung a portrait of a gentleman in recent English fashions; the ambassador himself? Mal’s guess was proved correct when the man from the painting descended the stair. A little older and stouter, perhaps, but undoubtedly Sir Geoffrey Berowne in the flesh.

“Sir Walter!” The ambassador bowed. “How wondrous unexpected! How is Her Majesty?”

Raleigh bowed in turn. “In good health, God be praised. And yourself?”

“The damp plays hell with my joints in the winter, but the summers make up for it.” He looked from Raleigh to Mal and back. “Have I been recalled?”

“Not at all,” Mal said, bowing and holding out Walsingham’s letter. “Maliverny Catlyn, at your service.”

Berowne took the letter and peered at the seal, then turned away as if he had quite forgotten their presence and headed back towards the stairs. Raleigh gestured for Mal to follow.

The stairs opened out into an antechamber hung with English tapestries. The one bare section of wall bore a portrait of the young Queen Elizabeth in a scarlet gown trimmed with gold, and below it stood a high-backed chair of dark wood. There was no other furniture.

“This is what they call the
piano nobile
, the noble floor,” Berowne said, seeming to remember his guests at last. “No Venetian lives on the ground floor of his house. No cellars, you see, because of the canals, so the street level chambers serve as store-rooms and shops.”

He ushered them through a door into a smaller, more intimate chamber, more like an English parlour. A chair and footstool, both upholstered in tapestry-work, waited by a small fireplace, though most of the space was occupied by a dining table of polished marquetry with an enormous gilt-and-glass candelabrum in the centre. Berowne went over to the window and cracked the seal of the letter.

They waited in silence until the ambassador had finished reading.

“Well,” Berowne said, and put it down on the table top. “Well, well.”

“Sir Geoffrey?” Mal took a step towards the ambassador. “Can I be of assistance?”

“I take it you are here to spy on the skraylings.”

Mal inclined his head in acknowledgement.

“Well,” the ambassador said, “I fear you have come all this way for naught.”

“What? Have they left already? But we saw one of their ships–”

“Oh no, they are still here. But how you are to spy on them, I cannot fathom. No one may speak to them without the permission of the Ten, not even the Doge. I doubt they will extend that privilege to a visiting Englishman.”

“Even one who is a personal friend of the skrayling ambassador?”

“Especially one who is a personal friend of the skrayling ambassador.”

“I see. That does present a difficulty. However Sir Francis has put his trust in me, and I must do what I can.”

Berowne squinted at him. “What did you say your name was?”

“Catlyn, sir. Maliverny Catlyn.”

“Catlyn… Catlyn.” Berowne went over to a bureau that Mal had not noticed before, hidden as it was in a shadowy corner. “I know that name from somewhere.”

Mal exchanged glances with Ned.

“Mayhap you received news from England, sir,” Mal said, “of how I saved the ambassador of Vinland’s life the summer before last.”

Berowne unlocked the bureau and sifted through some papers.

“No, no, that was not it. There was something in dispatches, about a fire in Southwark and the death of Sir Anthony Grey, but no mention of a Catlyn. What was it now? Ah, here it is.” He held up a sheet of paper. “A census of Englishmen living in the city. Another damn fool imposition, if you ask me, but it doesn’t do to question the Ten.”

Mal took it from him and scanned down the list. His heart lurched as he read the name: Catalin, Carlo.

“Charles.” He bit back a curse.

“You know him, then?”

“If it’s the same man, yes. He’s my older brother. I knew he had fled abroad, but had no idea of his whereabouts. In truth I thought him dead.”

Wished him dead, more like. What in God’s name was that base, shameless villain doing in Venice? He turned away, pretending to re-read the list. He tried to tell himself it was mere chance, that Charles had naturally been drawn to a city infamous for its whores and gambling dens, but he couldn’t shake off a feeling of unease. The bonds between the Catlyns and the skraylings ran far too deep for this to be a coincidence.

Next morning, Mal and Ned accompanied Raleigh to the Mercerie, the mercantile district of Venice. A series of narrow thoroughfares leading from St Mark’s Square to the Rialto Bridge, it was lined with shops selling every luxury the Serene Republic could provide. The upper stories of its buildings were draped with tapestries and lengths of silk and cloth of gold, so that the Mercerie looked more like a royal presence chamber than a city street. Cages of nightingales hung from shop fronts, adding their piercing notes to the clamour of voices, and the scent of ginger, cloves and attar of roses vied with the stink of the crowds. Ned stared about him, dazed by the assault on his senses. Now he knew how countryfolk felt upon arriving in London.

“Come on, snail!”

Ned turned to see Mal beckoning to him through the crowd. Raleigh was standing outside a haberdasher’s shop admiring a display of lace. Ned caught them up just as Raleigh went inside.

The interior of the shop was dim and cedar-scented, its walls lined with shelves on which a king’s ransom in fine fabrics lay neatly folded: cloth of gold and silver; silks of every colour imaginable, satin-smooth or cut velvet; rolls of ribbon, braid and of course Venetian lace. Some of the latter was made up into ruffs and collars, arranged on wooden half-dummies to display them to advantage. The black-clad proprietor stepped forward, like a shadow come to life.

“Good day, sirs!” he said in perfect English. “Welcome to my humble establishment. What is your desire?”

“How did he know we were English?” Ned whispered to Mal.

“Does Raleigh look Italian? Or French?”

Ned had to admit that the captain looked like neither, any more than the haberdasher looked like an Englishman. It was an odd sensation, finding himself the foreigner in town, and he decided he didn’t like it.