Winds of Folly (29 page)

His yacht. This was clearly one of the better class of Consul, but then Nathan had known it from the moment the footman had opened the door and he had followed him across the magnificent tiled courtyard with its brass-covered cistern.

‘And he says here,' peering at the letter through his spectacles without troubling to set them on his nose, ‘that you are from New York.' Raising his bushy brows in polite enquiry.

‘Indeed.'

But the enquiry, though courteously expressed, demanded a more fulsome response than this, so Nathan regaled this honest Virginian gentleman with a brief and entirely mendacious account of his activities as a merchant sea captain who had made his fortune trading between New York and London, but now wished to see a little more of the world than the grey
wastes of the North Atlantic. He had come to Venice primarily as a tourist, he said, but he also had an eye for any business opportunities that might arise in the region.

‘But of course,' Mr Devereux murmured with a polite bow and perhaps the merest hint of irony in his blue-grey eyes. He regretted, however, that such opportunities might be difficult to find in modern Venice. They stood in the window and looked down on the traffic in the Grand Canal.

‘Oh, there is still plenty of local trade,' the Consul assured him, ‘but it is mostly for the table and the salon. Foodstuffs, wine and the requirements of a woman's toilette – and a man's, too, of course, this being Venice – this is what sustains the
Serenissima
. You would not believe how long these people can spend before a mirror or how much money on a banquet or a suit of clothes.'

While his expression fell well short of a sneer, there was a sufficient note of censure in his tone to sharpen Nathan's perception of him.

‘I have always been a great admirer of the Venetians,' the Consul confided. ‘That is why my friend Mr Jefferson was kind enough to despatch me here. Like yours, Mr Turner, my family's wealth came from shipping and trade. As did that of the Venetians of old.

‘What a history this place has had! They came here as refugees, fleeing from the hordes of Attila the Hun, scavenging what poor living they could from the marshes and the mudflats. And through ships and trade they built an empire. “One quarter and one half of what was Rome's.” This was their proud boast. They conquered large parts of mainland Italy, they planted their colonies and their forts all down the coast of Dalmatia. In Albania, in the Morea, the Greek islands, Cyprus, Crete … Their fleets carried the Crusaders to the Holy Land and brought most of its wealth back with them. They sacked Constantinople
and stripped it of all they could carry. They brought back the wealth of the Orient by camel train along the Silk Route through Samarkand and Isfahan to Aleppo. And their ships carried it to all the ports of the western world. They were the richest and most powerful nation in Europe – before Europe knew what nations were. But then a Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama discovered a new route to the Orient, around Cape Horn, and they had lost their monopoly on the wealth of the East. And about the same time, the Turks took Constantinople and closed their doors to them, shutting off the Silk Route. And that was the end of it.

‘Venice has been in decline for more than three hundred years, Mr Turner. I knew that when I came here. It was not a surprise to me. I expected to see decline. I did not expect to see … decadence.

‘You ask what opportunities there are for trade in Venice. I am sorry to say, Mr Turner, that there is but one. And I will tell you what it is, in the privacy of my own home and because there are no ladies present, and because Mr Foresti has vouched for you as an honourable man. It is the trade in sexual favours.'

Nathan exchanged his expression of polite interest for one of shock and dismay. So embroiled was he in the character of Nathaniel Turner, as he understood it, he could not be sure if this was genuine or not. The Consul appeared to find it gratifying.

‘Venice, as you must know, Mr Turner, has become the premier destination on the Grand Tour,' he continued in the same confidential vein. ‘People come here to see the fine architecture and the works of art, the churches, the canals … They come to marvel at the miracle that is Venice, this city on the sea. But they also come for the grossest forms of pleasure – and they find them, I am sorry to say, in the most unlikely of places.' He paused a moment and Nathan observed that he was
blushing. ‘But this is not proper of me,' he said, in a different tone. ‘I am afraid I have become carried away by my own abhorrence of these practices, my disappointment in these people, the modern Venetians.' He shook his head. ‘Suffice to say that in its heyday there were sixteen thousand people employed in shipbuilding at the Arsenale. Now there are but a quarter of that number. Only a few years ago, there were twelve thousand employed in the silk industry. Now there are a thousand. There are as many people employed in dressing hair. I could go on. It is part of my job to advise my fellow countrymen, Mr Turner, on opportunities for trade. But I will not be their pimp, sir. I will not be their pander.'

Not another Udny then, Nathan reflected.

‘I had no idea,' he said wonderingly. ‘And I had thought they came to see the works of Titian and of Tintoretto, of Tiepolo and Bellini – as I do.'

The Consul laid a hand on his arm. ‘My dear sir, please do not think for a moment that I intended to imply … My goodness, not for a moment.' Now he was truly embarrassed. ‘Not when you have been recommended to me by Mr Spiridion Foresti, upon my word. No, and I shall be very glad to tell you where you may find these wonders, and others beside. In fact, it would give me the greatest of pleasure if you would accompany me – and my wife and daughter – to a concert tomorrow evening. A selection of the arias of Mr Handel is being performed to a select gathering at the house of Carlos Goldoni.'

Nathan murmured that he would be delighted, of course, if Signor Goldoni did not mind an extra guest. A small shadow crossed the Consul's face. ‘Signor Goldoni has been dead for many years,' he revealed. ‘But he is still revered as the most accomplished playwright that Venice has ever produced. The Venetian Molière, I have heard him called. His house is now
something of a shrine – and you will be most welcome to worship at it.'

And so it was agreed that Nathan should call upon the Consul again the following evening at seven and they should travel there together in the Consul's private gondola. ‘For we use gondolas as others use a carriage,' Mr Devereux assured him jocularly as they rose to their feet, ‘and glide upon water with more ease and comfort, I do assure you, than you will ever have experienced on the streets of New York.'

This was certainly true.

The Consul conducted him down the stairs and across the stone courtyard to the steps where Nathan's own gondola was awaiting him. The house had been built for a wealthy Venetian nobleman of the Querini family, Mr Devereux informed him, which had in the past contributed several members to the office of Doge.

‘Which is, in a manner of speaking, the equivalent of our President,' he said, ‘though not, alas, elected by the people as is the case in our own country. For the electors must be of noble birth and their names enshrined in what they call the Golden Book. There are but twelve hundred of them, though I doubt but one-tenth are now men of substance.'

‘And the rest?'

‘Impoverished. Noble, but near-destitute. That is the truth of it, Mr Turner. That is the glory that was Venice.'

Throughout this discourse, Nathan had a strange feeling that they were being observed from above, and under pretence of admiring their surroundings his gaze swept the upper floors to observe a blonde head and a pale face hastily drawn back from the surrounding balustrade, leaving him with an impression of a grave and secluded beauty.

‘Until tomorrow,' said the Consul, as he saw him to the door.

*

‘Where now?' enquired Kyrgyakos with a scowl. Clearly the role of guide was not one to which he aspired.

‘The British Ambassador's house,' Nathan told him as he sank into the cushioned seats of the cabin with a sigh of remorse and self-disgust. Was this the facility that made Imlay so pleased with himself, like some smug conjuror or illusionist who alone knows that things are not what they appear to be; that it is all smoke and mirrors – the effortless trick of deception? But it could never be that for Nathan. He was ruined by his upbringing as the son of a Tory squire and a New York feminist: it bred a certain peculiar integrity. And yet … Sometimes he wondered at himself, sometimes he wondered if he was just a bit too good at it, that it might come naturally, after all. He did not mind tricking the French. They were there to be tricked. But there was no credit in deceiving an elderly gentleman of Virginia, not unless you were one of his slaves when, admittedly, it might compensate a little for the inconveniences he caused you from time to time.

He wondered who the blonde beauty was that he had seen upon the stair. Devereux's daughter? Surely not his wife? If it was his wife, well, perhaps
he
was not quite what he appeared to be, for she was much less than half his age. But it
must
be his daughter. Nathan would find out, presumably, when he joined them for an evening of Handel arias at the house of Carlo Goldoni.

He was already beginning to look forward to this. It would not be the most arduous of the tasks he had performed as a spy in the service of His Britannic Majesty, nor the most foolish.

They were entering another labyrinth of waterways, so cut off from the light of the sun – and so stinking and putrid – he might almost have imagined himself in the sewers under Paris on another misadventure imposed upon him by one of the
King's Ministers. But then they glided out of darkness into light, light so dazzlingly reflected off the surface of the water and the bleached buildings that surrounded it, he was obliged to raise his arm to his eyes as if to ward off a blow.

‘The house of the British Ambassador, your honour,' Kyrgyakos informed him with an ironic bow.

But the British Ambassador was not at home.

Nathan gazed doubtfully up at the imposing façade of the palazzo in the Campo dei Miracoli where Sir Richard Worsley was said to reside. Not quite as imposing as the American Consulate, though possibly of an earlier vintage. There was an air of dilapidation about the place and most of the windows were shuttered. And there was no flag.

‘Ask him where he is,' Nathan instructed Kyrgyakos, for the footman who had answered the door improbably claimed to speak no English.

‘He says he is not at liberty to reveal, your honour.'

‘Tell him I have vital despatches for His Excellency.' Nathan tapped the canvas bag he carried over his shoulder. ‘And he will not be pleased if they are not delivered.'

A brief exchange.

‘He says to give him the despatches and he will ensure that His Excellency receives them.'

‘Then be so good as to tell him that
I
am not at liberty to part with them. Not to any but the British Ambassador.'

A lengthier dialogue ensued, apparently of some import, judging from the reactions it elicited. Nathan controlled his impatience with difficulty.

‘He says the Ambassador has been poisoned,' Kyrgyakos declared with grim satisfaction.

‘Poisoned?'

A shrug. ‘We are in Venice. It is not so very strange.'

‘You mean he is dead?'

‘Not dead, but dying.' He considered this interpretation for a moment and modified it to ‘very ill'.

‘Then where is he?' Nathan demanded when he had digested this information as well as he was able. There was a further interchange with a great deal of shrugging on both sides.

‘In Murano,' Kyrgyakos said. ‘Where they make the glass.'

‘And where is that?'

Murano, it appeared, was one of the other islands – of which there were above a hundred – in the lagoon. Nathan considered. He had been hopeful that if he were being watched by agents of the Ten – as Spiridion had said he would be – they might think he had come here as the result of some casual remark by the American Consul, perhaps to see Sir Richard's collection of paintings and antiquities. A journey out to some remote island in pursuit of a dying, or at least very ill Ambassador could not be explained quite so readily. But it was a journey he persuaded himself he was obliged to make.

‘Can we go there?' he enquired of his guide.

‘But of course. You can see it from the Fondamenta Nuove.'

Not so remote then, but somewhat perplexing, for at first sight, as they crossed the intervening half-mile or so of water, it appeared to be composed entirely of tall chimneys belching forth an immense cloud of thick black smoke. Kyrgyakos supplied the information that the glass industry had been moved here by government decree many years before, after the furnaces had caused a number of fires in Venice. It now employed some 30,000 people and Murano glass had become the
Serenissima
's chief export.

Nathan wondered why the American Consul had not mentioned this in his summary of the Venetian economy. He also wondered, rather more pertinently, why the British
Ambassador should consider it a suitable place to recover from being poisoned. However, as their vessel glided up the eastern shore of the island, they left the tall chimneys and the fiery furnaces behind them and entered a pastoral idyll of vineyards and citrus groves, interlaced by pleasant rambling waterways and rural lanes. This, it appeared, was where Sir Richard Worsley had chosen to hide himself.

He was not dying. He did not even look very ill. But he
had
been poisoned.

‘By the Devil. Or one of his accursed agents,' he told Nathan when the latter was admitted to his company.

Nathan gathered that he meant the man Spiridion had warned him about, not the Prince of Darkness, though the Ambassador gave him to understand that there was little to distinguish between the two.