The Merchant of Dreams (43 page)

“I meant no disrespect,” Gabriel said. “Indeed, La Margherita sent me so as not to cause embarrassment. She only wants her necklace back, the one she lent your husband to have valued.”

“I know of no such necklace. Now, be gone.”

Gabriel rose to his feet and curtsied, and Coby did likewise though, she feared, with far less grace. The maidservant showed them to the stairs and then fled back to her mistress.

“What do we do now?” Coby said, glancing about them. Dared they risk sneaking back to try and steal the necklace?

Gabriel just shook his head. “Next time, Sandy does his own dirty work. Though I must say I haven’t enjoyed myself so much in months.”

As they reached the atrium, the manservant stepped out of the shadows. He held out his hand.

“The necklace!” Gabriel exclaimed softly.

The man gabbled something in the Venetian dialect and pressed the double string of beads into the actor’s hands.

“Why, thank you!”

Gabriel passed it to Coby, then leaned closer to the man and murmured something in his ear, simultaneously reaching down to caress his groin. The manservant’s eyes widened, then he grinned lasciviously. Gabriel swept past him, and he hurried to hold the door open for them. Thankfully the gondolier was still waiting.

“What was all that about?” Coby hissed as the gondola drew away.

“Just a handy phrase that Valerio taught me. Seems it works whether one is a man or a woman.”

“You’re as bad as Ned,” she muttered.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He waved out of the window at a group of passing bravos, who leered and catcalled as they passed. “So, why do you think the servant gave us the necklace?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Perhaps he thought it some kind of black magic that had brought them bad luck. He must have found it rather odd when his master took to sleeping in a string of old beads inscribed with foreign-looking symbols.”

She took the necklace out of her pocket. Some of the jade beads did indeed look ancient, their carvings worn to illegibility. She wondered again just how old Erishen was, but decided she was probably better off not knowing.

CHAPTER XXX

Mal climbed out of the hired gondola and paid the man. After a moment’s hesitation, he raised his hand to the door knocker, a polished sphere that sat in the centre of a brass oyster shell like a giant pearl. The sound of its impact echoed along the canal, and he had to fight the urge to look about him to see if he had drawn undue attention. The door was opened by the eunuch slave, Hafiz.

“Signore Catalin.” He bowed, his features politely impassive. “Is my mistress expecting you?”

“No,” Mal said. “I… I hoped to surprise her.”

“I will see if she wishes to be surprised.” A glimmer of a smile crossed the eunuch’s lips and was gone.

Mal readied himself for a long wait. Perhaps she would refuse to see him. After all, she had told him not to come back until the skraylings had left. Should he lie and say they were gone? No, even if she did not find out the truth, she would want him to assist in her self-slaughter, and that would throw all their plans into disarray. There was only one reason she would believe he had gone back on his word. He would have play the lovelorn swain to the hilt, despite his vow to be faithful to Coby from now on. This was just business, after all.

When the eunuch did finally return, he ushered Mal up to Olivia’s private apartments. The courtesan was seated on the daybed near the doors to the balcony, her dark skin thrown into greater contrast by the sunlit glass behind her. Mal paused on the threshold and swept a low bow.

“
Signorina
.”

She beckoned for him to come closer.

“I did not expect to see you again so soon,” she said. “Does all go to plan?”

“It progresses slowly. Rome was not built in a day.”

“Nor Venice.” She smiled. “Come, sit beside me. So,
amayi’a
, to what do I owe the honour of another visit so soon and unannounced?”

Ned strode across Saint Mark’s Square, hands deep in pockets. The gilded angels on the façade of the basilica caught the last of the setting sun; they looked as if they were about to depart the earth and fly up to heaven, away from the sordid doings of the mortals below. He didn’t blame them. If only his own Angel would do the same, and take Ned with him. Except without the dying part, of course.

Reaching the Mermaid meant passing the Doge’s palace, though Ned gave it a wide a berth, averting his eyes and swallowing past the bile in his throat. The quayside was as crowded as ever: newly arrived visitors stepping off boats, their mouths sagging open at the wonders before them; citizens weaving through the throng on some urgent business or other; and of course the usual swarms of beggars and pickpockets buzzing around anyone who looked as though they might have a fatter purse than was strictly necessary. Ned ignored them all and slipped past the front of the palace as fast as he could.

Just as he approached the tavern a trio of drunken sailors lurched out of the door, singing a bawdy ballad. The words, about a man with a long “thing”, cheered him up somewhat and he found himself humming the tune as he stepped through the door of the tavern and looked around. There was no sign of his quarry. He went over to the tap-man.

“Seen Charles Catlyn lately?”

The man looked him up and down, his solid features creasing with glacial slowness.

“Here, didn’t I see you chase Catlyn out of here the other day? You and that tall fellow.”

“Uh, yes.”

“Owes you money, does he?”

“Something like that.”

The tap-man laughed. “Good luck with getting it back.”

“Have you seen him?”

The tap-man shook his head. “Most likely you’ll find him in the Turk’s Head, off the Campo San Giovanni.”

“Another inn?” Ned asked.

“A
casino
: a private gambling house. Over the next bridge, turn left, and it’s just before you get to the square. Got a dark green door with a knocker in the shape of a Turk’s head. Knock twice, then twice again.”

The
casino
was not hard to find; though it looked much like any other house in the street, the crowds eddied away from its door, as if an invisible fence kept them out. He stepped up to the door, feeling horribly conspicuous, and knocked as instructed. After a few moments the door opened, and he stepped inside.

The interior of the little gambling house was darker even than the streets, and the air thick with tobacco smoke and curses. Men sat at tables playing cards, or crouched on the floor to throw dice. Bare-breasted whores perched on customers’ knees, shifting from one man to the next as the money changed hands, like sordid incarnations of Lady Luck. Ned weaved his way amongst the tables, trying to spot Charles without catching anyone’s eye.

A man wearing rather better clothing than the rest of the patrons got up from his seat, directly into Ned’s path and addressed him in Italian.

“I’m looking for a friend,” Ned replied in English. “He recommended this place.”

“His name,
signore
?”

“Charles Catlyn.”

A few of the other players looked up at this. Ned tensed, expecting Charles to bolt again, but no one made a move.

“Over there.” One of the patrons jerked a thumb towards the corner of the room.

Ned found his quarry seated at a table with three other men. He hung back and watched for a while, leaning on the wall. They were playing a game he did not know, one that appeared to require several dozen wooden counters in addition to the cards and the betted money. Some of the counters were marked “VI”, and a small stack of darker counters sat at the dealer’s left hand. At last the game ended and one of the players got up from the table with many complaints. Ned sauntered over.

“Mind if I join you, gentlemen?”

Charles appeared to notice him for the first time. He blanched and leapt up from his seat, staring wildly around the gambling-house with watery eyes.

“Where is he?”

“Sandy’s not with me,” Ned replied, taking the vacant seat. “Sit down, Charlie, I just came for a quiet game of… what is it you fellows are playing, anyway?”

“
Rovescino
,” one of the other players said, collecting up all the counters and sorting them into three piles. “You know it?”

Ned shook his head and grinned. “Why don’t you show me?”

The crimson-draped bed was large enough for two at the very least. Mal pulled off his boots and then lay back, watching Olivia undress. The candlelight gilded her skin so that she looked like one of the icons adorning St Mark’s basilica, complete with enigmatic eyes and a golden halo around her coiffure. Stripped to her corset and a pair of ivory silk breeches, she began to remove the strings of pearls and glass beads from her hair.

“Don’t your lovers grow impatient?” he asked, swirling his coffee cup to dissolve the last dregs of precious sugar. “So many layers…”

“Are you impatient, my love?”

“Anticipation is half the torture.” A lie; he could now vouch for that personally. “And half the pleasure.”

She laughed, a deep throaty sound that send an echo through his veins. “You are a man after my own heart.”

Free of her adornments at last, she drifted over to the bed, circling round to the far side before climbing onto the broad mattress, just out of arm’s reach.

“Will you not undress?” she said, head cocked on one side. “You have the advantage of me.”

“I was hoping you would help me.”

She smiled. “I do not think you need my help.”

With an exaggerated sigh he began to unbutton his doublet. Soon he was stripped to his linen drawers, the evening air cool on his bare skin. Once, he had dreamed of being naked with her; now he flinched at her touch, fearing could strip his very soul bare and betray his purpose.

“How often have you been a woman?” he asked as she sidled closer.

“Not often,” she said. “It is not easy to be the weaker sex, even with our talents to protect us.”

“Weaker?” He felt Erishen stir within him. “That is the human speaking.”

“I have had to learn to work with the situation at hand. Here, women are allowed so little freedom. Did you know that Venetian noblewomen are scarcely allowed out of the house except to attend funerals or great state occasions?” She made a rude noise. “It is barbaric.”

“Then you would prefer to be a man next time.”

“Of course.” She traced a line down his chest with her fingertip, and he suppressed a shiver of mingled fear and lust. “You would dislike that?”

“No. But I like you as you are. More like a skrayling woman than these pale Christians.”

The lies came so easily, he felt guilt at every word but could not stop himself. It was as if Erishen was speaking through him. He tried to relax as Olivia kissed her way up his torso and across his chest, her unbound hair brushing his skin on either side of the kisses. Her lips brushed the knot of scar tissue on his left shoulder and began to trace a path down his arm.

“What is this?” she hissed, her body tensing as she crouched over him.

Mal realised she was staring at the tattoo on his shoulder: a triskelion of branched thorns surrounded by three five-petalled flowers. His mind raced, trying to concoct a story that would not betray his links to Kiiren. It would help if he knew what the sigil actually meant. Kiiren said it was for “remembering”, but what did that signify?

“I had it done at a fair in England,” he said at last. “I saw the design in the skraylings’ pattern book and took a fancy to it. Why?”

“That is an ancient sigil; I have not seen its like in centuries. And you say someone was selling these to humans as mere decoration?”

Mal feigned innocence. “I can only tell you what I know. What does it mean?”

“I don’t know.” It seemed to bother her. “Perhaps you remember more than you realise…”

“Perhaps so.” He ran his hands down her arms, then slipped them round her waist and pulled her close. “But enough of the past…”

“
Il mio tesoro
,” she whispered in his ear, and kissed the metal hoop where it pierced his earlobe. “Will you not take this off now? I think you are ready for a true joining.”

He bent his head to kiss her shoulder, hoping that she mistook the pounding of his heart for lust. He had been afraid she would suggest this, now when it was impossible for him to allow it.

“I want to enjoy every inch of you with my waking eyes first,” he said. “What’s the hurry, when we have all eternity to look forward to?”

He pushed his fears to the back of his mind and let his body take over. This was a dance he knew of old, though never with so graceful a partner. Soon he forgot why he had ever been afraid of her.

They made love slowly, languorously, lingering over each caress until every nerve trembled like a lute-string at the merest touch. Her fingertips, hot as gledes, danced over his skin as he moved inside her, and the end came all too soon despite his best efforts to prolong their pleasure. He withdrew and rolled over, recalling his purpose here. Dare he stay the night? If so, should he take her captive as she slept and try to keep her hidden until tomorrow?

“Perhaps you are right,” she murmured, propping herself up on one elbow behind him. “Sometimes the simple ways are the best.”

She slipped a hand around his waist and down towards his navel, making his belly muscles tighten in anticipation. He sucked in a breath and pulled himself upright. Time to get out of here, before he did something stupid. Like doing that again, without the spirit-guard’s protection this time. He could always come back.

“I don’t suppose I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, trying to sound casual. He retrieved his clothes and began dressing.

“You are leaving so soon?”

She shifted on the bed, candlelight gilding her curves. Mal turned his back and pulled on his shirt. It stuck to his clammy skin, but there was no helping it.

“I have business to attend to, and no desire to be arrested for breaking curfew.” Mal looked back over his shoulder. “It was you, wasn’t it, who gained us our reprieve?”