The Venetian Contract (23 page)

In Venice, even among servants, Feyra saw that women got the worst deal. They did not seem to have been schooled, any of them; and when the men came to play cards in the kitchen in the evening, the women had to retire to their
rooms. In Venice, she was sure, no woman would have been encouraged, or even permitted to qualify as a doctor.

Some things were the same here as at home. Corona Cucina was very like the kitchen wives that she’d known in Topkapi: kind, loud, brash and bawdy. She talked incessantly and at times Feyra had to stop her ears to the stream of stories about what the cook got up to in her young days, or how various members of the household conducted their courtings and couplings.

And yet, Feyra could not help but warm to the enemy. She thought of the young mother who had given her hand to Death, the boatman who had not taken her coin, and Zabato Zabatini who had taken her into this place. At these times she remembered, with a shock, that she herself was half Venetian. She had a foot in two nations however wide the seas between.

Feyra might have prided herself on fitting into Palladio’s household, but it was not only the two footmen who had noted her presence. News of a beautiful new maidservant in the
sestiere
travelled fast, especially in a city cut off from the outside world. Once again she had to become used to the gaze of men. Her few trips to the market had excited some keen interest among the stallholders and she would have been horrified to discover that she was the toast of more than one drinking session at the market locanda. Accustomed now to her Venetian dress, the veils and the swathed clothes of her homeland seemed part of another life, but one day as she hurried through the market, Feyra was brought to a standstill by a sun-yellowed pamphlet tacked to the wall.

She drew closer, heart thudding, holding it flat to study it, the paper bubbling under her suddenly damp fingertips. The figure depicted was grotesque – a female and a Turk, wearing a veil, voluminous breeches and upturned yellow slippers. Protruding from the headdress were wiry black curls like corkscrews, and a hooked nose curved over the
yashmak
. Feyra could not read Venetian as well as she spoke it, but she recognized the word
Muselmana
. This, she was sure, was meant to be her. She tore the paper quickly from the wall and crumpled it into her basket. Looking from left to right to check that no one had seen what she had done, Feyra failed to notice the tall, cloaked figure watching her from the edge of the square.

Chapter 19

A
nnibale had just seven nights of peace on his island.

It was Bocca who alerted him, and came running from the gatehouse. Fiercely partisan since the gift of the chalice, he apprised Annibale of every passing bark or coracle, whether they were of note or not.

Today Annibale saw at once, from the old man’s shambling speed, and the expression on his face as he called, ‘Ship ahoy,
Dottore
, ship ahoy!’ that this was a craft of quite a different colour, even before Bocca elaborated.

‘Longboat,
Dottore
, forty-oar, hoving from San Marco.’

Annibale hurried through the gate, although he was not so flustered that he forgot to dip his feet in the potash. He could see a speck on the horizon, and marvelled at the keenness of the gatekeeper’s eyes, although his own were hampered by his smoked lenses. The barge came closer till he could see the diamond dips of the oars, down and pull, down and pull, all forty in perfect synchronicity. The boat appeared to be made of some light timber for it seemed gilded by some trick of the sunlight. As the craft grew nearer Annibale realized that he had made no mistake – the barge was, in fact, made of gold; and as soon as he saw the face of a lion on the prow, with his mane spread like sunrays, he knew it was over.

This was the
Bucintoro
, the barge of the Doge.

A man stood in the prow, his magenta cloak bellying and cracking in the wind like a sail, the sea breeze ruffling his short blond hair. He was not especially tall, nor muscular, but he carried an air of great authority.

‘Are you Annibale Cason,
Dottore della Peste
?’

‘I am.’

‘I am the Camerlengo to Sebastiano Venier, His Serene Highness the Doge of Venice.’

Annibale was glad of the mask. He looked at the Camerlengo. The chamberlain was suited in black beneath the cloak, in a suit of clothes that seemed to be made of hide, some sort of supple black leather. He was a younger man than Annibale expected, with the blond hair and blue eyes of a northerner. He was neat, cleanshaven, with his hair cropped short as a Teuton; and his voice was cultured and low. There was nothing threatening about him, and yet everything; and suddenly Annibale was afraid.

‘Is there somewhere we can speak privately?’ the Camerlengo asked.

‘Yes.’ Annibale looked at the semicircle of guards. ‘All of you?’

The Camerlengo smiled pleasantly. ‘Just me.’

Annibale began to relax a fraction, and took courage. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, Camerlengo, could you walk through this pit?’

The Camerlengo lifted his wine-coloured cloak and walked obligingly through the potash. Annibale followed him through the gate.

Once inside the walls, Annibale led the way across the lawns, giving the Tezon a wide berth. He tried to imagine what the Camerlengo would be thinking and tried to
see the place through his eyes. It was a sparkling autumn day – the sun was shining and there was a fresh coolness in the shadows and a breath of winter in the air. The mulberries were turning to rose and amber. He could see the children running around by the schoolhouse, and hear the chime of the little bell of San Bartolomeo calling Tierce for the nuns. The rich dark loam of the neatly dug herb garden with its botanical sectors in circles and squares made a pleasing contrast with the verdant turf, and the area of wilderness that he’d had scythed and marked off for a graveyard was yet to receive its first body. Things had been going so well. Annibale pointed with his cane. ‘My house –’ he stopped himself, for the title sounded overly proprietorial ‘– the place where I stay is this way.’

The Camerlengo stopped and drew in a deep breath of the cool autumn air. ‘It is a fair day, is it not? Shall we take our ease here? I spend overmuch of my time in the great chambers of government.’ There was no hint of a boast in the statement: the Camerlengo’s power was complete. ‘So I take the air whenever I can. And certainly it seems sweeter here than in our stricken city. Better to be out than in on such a day, don’t you think?’

He sat down on the ancient fallen pillar by the mulberry walk, and Annibale sat warily beside him. He did not think the question required an answer, but the Camerlengo thought differently. ‘Don’t you think, Cason?’ he repeated.

There was an edge of threat in the idle question. Annibale turned to him and the sun caught the ice in the blue eyes. The Camerlengo expected his question, this conversational nothing, to be answered with a considered reply; and, by implication, all future questions too. Annibale wondered if the chamberlain ever left those great painted salons of the
Doge’s palace to descend down to the dungeons and apply his inquisitorial skills with rather more pressure, assisted perhaps by the fire and the irons. His eyes wandered to the guards beyond the gate. They stood on the jetty in a neat semicircle, hands clasped before them. They did not loll or jest as men-at-arms at ease were wont to do. These, he knew were the
Leoni
, the elite guard for the Doge and his household. So Annibale waited for the next question, knowing he was powerless.

‘Are you aware of the
Consiglio della Sanita
?’

Annibale knew the Council of Health very well, and had been, more than once, to the immense white building next to the
Zecca
Mint in San Marco, which served as the Council’s headquarters.

‘I was lately there,’ said the Camerlengo, ‘sent by my master the Doge, in search of
un vero Dottore
. Do you know what he meant by that?’

Annibale knew exactly what
he
meant by a ‘real doctor’ but whether his opinion was shared by the Doge, he knew not. Some of his customary arrogance surfaced. ‘Yes. Me.’

The Camerlengo gave the ghost of a smile. ‘It is interesting that you say that. For I have to tell you that when I was at the Consiglio there was a doctor there, named Valnetti, complaining about you very vociferously. Do you know this man?’

‘I do.’ Annibale began to understand the Camerlengo. He was a man of fierce intelligence, but gave nothing of this away. Instead, he asked questions, allowing his subjects to reveal themselves. He elected for complete honesty. ‘He is a fool.’

The Camerlengo sniffed. ‘That was my impression also.
And I must say, one shared by the Doge. So –’ he brushed the skirts of his robe with his long fingers. He had very neat, square nails. ‘This island of yours. How does it work? The afflicted are in that great building there?’

‘Yes,’ said Annibale, encouraged by his interest. ‘And their families in the almshouses.’

The pale eyebrows raised. ‘You brought the families too? For sentimental reasons?’

‘No.’ Annibale was quick to reject the suggestion. ‘Because they might also have been exposed to the miasma, and may develop the disease secondarily. When you cut out a canker, you must take it all, the tumour
and
the healthy flesh that surrounds it.’

The Camerlengo made a little moue with his mouth at the metaphor. ‘I see. And have they developed the disease?’

‘Not so far, no.’

The Camerlengo seemed impressed. ‘And how are you treating the infected? Do I take it you do not approve of Valnetti’s remedies?’

‘Four Thieves Vinegar? No. I find it somewhat … old-fashioned. I treat my patients with the latest surgical interventions – I was lately schooled at Padua.’ The Camerlengo gave a nod. ‘For instance, I respect the proven Galenic theories that we all know to be truths: the four humours and the necessity of balancing these. I leech the patients to draw off the evil humours, and I have also begun to lance the pushes that appear in the groin and under the arm. This seems to have some efficacy.’

For once it seemed that he had given the Camerlengo too much information.

‘There have been deaths?’

‘Not so far.’

‘And the families – are you taking measures to protect them from infection?’

‘Of course. We have contained the infection and we take certain measures to ensure the miasma cannot leave the isolation area. For instance – there is a smoke chamber that I pass though each time I enter or leave. And there is a further pit of lime and potash at the doorway.’

‘Would you say, then, that it would be possible to put these measures in place in the house of an individual?’

‘Of course.’ Annibale began to guess where these questions tended, and felt brave enough to ask one of his own. ‘Is it your wish, that is, do you wish me to be the Doge’s doctor?’

‘No, not that. He has no fears for his own health. But there is a man that is very important to him, a man that he wishes, at all costs, to be kept alive.’

What man’s life could possibly be worth more to Venice than that of the Doge? Annibale asked himself.

‘Are you wondering who it is?’ The Camerlengo seemed unable to break the habit of his constant questioning.

‘Yes.’

‘His name is Andrea Palladio.’

Somewhere through the mists of memory, the name chimed. Annibale was astonished. ‘The architect? Why?’

‘My Lord Doge has commissioned him to build a church on the site of an ancient monastery on the island of Giudecca, a ruin where once Plague miracles were performed by means of a blessed well there. Signor Palladio is undertaking to build a church that is great enough to appease the Lord, and have him turn his vengeful eye away from Venice.’

Annibale barely suppressed a snort.

‘You find this singular? Yet the Doge believes – saving your presence – that the Almighty has a better chance of saving the city than the medical professionals – the ones he has met at any rate.’ The Camerlengo did not reveal whether or not he agreed with the Doge; he was here to serve his master’s will, and serve it he would. ‘He does, however, need a medical man he can trust, to protect the architect from the pestilence until his work is done.’

‘He is a well man? The architect?’

‘Tolerably, I believe. He is elderly, but is that not an affliction that all of us must one day face?’