“And, since there is no further need for your advocacy,” I said resignedly, “I assume you have come only in the guise of prisoner’s comforter.”
“At any rate, I bring news you should find comforting. The Council this morning elected a new Doge.”
“Ah, yes. They were postponing the election until they had the sassin of Doge Zeno. And they have me. Why should you think I find that comforting?”
“Perhaps you forget that your father and uncle are members of that Council. And since their miraculous return from their long absence, they are quite the most popular members of the community of merchants. Therefore, in the election, they could exert noticeable influence on the votes of all the merchant nobles. A man named Lorenzo Tiepolo was eager to become Doge, and in return for the merchants’ bloc of votes, he was prepared to make certain commitments to your father and uncle.”
“Such as what?” I asked, not daring to hope.
“It is traditional that a new Doge, on his accession, proclaims some amnesties. The Serenita Tiepolo is going to forgive your felonious commission of arson, which permitted the escape of one Mordecai Cartafilo from this prison.”
“So I do not burn as an arsonist,” I said. “I merely lose my hand and my head as a murderer.”
“No, you do not. You are right that the sassin has been captured, but you are wrong about its being you. Another man has confessed to the sassinada.”
Fortunately the cell was small or I should have fallen down. But I only reeled and slumped against the wall.
The Brother went on, at an infuriatingly slow pace. “I told you I brought news of comfort. You have more advocates than you know, and they have all been busy in your behalf. That zudio you freed, he did not just keep on running, or take ship to some distant land. He did not even hide in the warrens of the Jews’ burgheto. Instead, he went to visit a priest—not a rabino, a real Christian priest—one of the under-priests of the San Marco Basilica itself.”
I said, “I tried to tell you about that priest.”
“Well, it seems the priest had been the Lady Ilaria’s secret lover, but she turned bitter toward him when she so nearly became our Dogaressa and then did not. When she put away the priest from her affections, he became remorseful of having done such a vile deed as murder, and to no profitable end. Of course, he might still have kept silent, and kept the matter between himself and God. But then Mordecai Cartafilo called on him. It seems the Jew spoke of some papers he holds in pawn. He did not even show them, he had only to mention them, and that was enough to turn the priest’s secret remorse into open repentance. He went to his superiors and made full confession, waiving the privilege of the confessional. So he is now under house arrest in his canonica chambers. The Dona Ilaria is also confined to her house, as an accomplice in the crime.”
“What happens next?”
“All must await the new Doge’s taking office. Lorenzo Tiepolo will not wish the very start of his Dogato made notorious, for this case now involves rather more prominent persons than just a boy playing bravo. The lady widow of the murdered Doge-elect, a priest of San Marco … well, the Doge Tiepolo will do everything possible to minify the scandal. He will probably allow the priest to be tried in camera by an ecclesiastical court, instead of the Quarantia. My guess is that the priest will be exiled to some remote parish in the Veneto mainland. And the Doge will probably command the Lady Ilaria to take the veil in some remote nunnery. There is precedent for such procedure. A hundred or so years ago, in France, there was a similar situation involving a priest and a lady.”
“And what happens to me?”
“As soon as the Doge dons the white scufieta, he proclaims his amnesties, and yours will be among them. You will be pardoned of the arson, and you have already been acquitted of the sassinada. You will be released from prison.”
“Free!” I breathed.
“Well, perhaps a trifle more free than you might wish.”
“What?”
“I said the Doge will arrange that this whole sordid affair be soon forgotten. If he simply turned you loose in Venice, you would be an ever present reminder of it. Your amnesty is conditional upon your banishment. You are outcast. You are to leave Venice forever.”
During the subsequent days that I remained in the cell, I reflected on all that had come to pass. It was hurtful to think of leaving Venice, la serenisima, la clarisima. But that was better than dying in the piazzetta or staying in the Vulcano, which provided neither serenity nor brightness. I could even feel sorry for the priest who had struck the bravo’s blow in my stead. As a young curate in the Basilica, he had doubtless looked forward to high advancement in the Church, which he could never hope for in backwoods exile. And Ilaria would endure an even more pitiable exile, her beauty and talents to be forever useless to her now. But maybe not; she had managed to lavish them rather prodigally when she was a married woman; she might also manage to enjoy them as a bride of Christ. She would at least have ample opportunity to sing the hymn of the nuns, as she had called it. All in all, compared to our victim’s irrevocable fate, we three had got off lightly.
I was released from the prison even less ceremoniously than I had been bundled into it. The guards unlocked my cell door, led me along the corridors and down stairs and through other doors, unlocking the final one to let me out into the courtyard. There I had only to walk through the Gate of the Wheat onto the sunlit lagoonside Riva, and I was as free as the countless wheeling sea gulls. It was a good feeling, but I would have felt even better if I had been able to clean myself and don fresh raiment before emerging. I had been unwashed and clad in the same clothes all this time, and I stank of fish oil, smoke and pissota effluvium. My garments were torn, from my struggle on the night of the aborted escape, and what was left of them was dirty and rumpled. Also, in those days I was just sprouting my first down of beard; it may not have been very visible, but it added to my feeling of scruffiness. I could have wished for better circumstances in which to meet my father for the first time in my memory. He and my uncle Mafio were waiting on the Riva, both dressed in the elegant robes they had probably worn, as members of the Council, at the new Doge’s accession.
“Behold your son!” bellowed my uncle. “Your arcistupendonazzisimo son! Behold the namesake of our brother and our patron saint! Is this not a wretched and puny meschin, to have caused so much ado?”
“Father?” I said timorously to the other man.
“My boy?” he said, almost as hesitantly, but opening his arms.
I had expected someone even more overwhelming than my uncle, since my father was the elder of the two. But he was actually pale alongside his brother; not nearly so big and burly, and much softer of voice. Like my uncle, he wore a journeyer’s beard, but his was neatly trimmed. His beard and hair were not of a fearsome raven black, but a decorous mouse color, like my own hair.
“My son. My poor orphan boy,” said my father. He embraced me, but quickly put me away at arm’s length, and said worriedly, “Do you always smell like that?”
“No, Father. I have been locked up for—”
“You forget, Nico, that this is a bravo and a bonvivan and a gambler between the pillars,” boomed my uncle. “A champion of ill-married matrons, a lurker in the night, a wielder of the sword, a liberator of Jews!”
“Ah, well,” said my father indulgently. “A chick must stretch his wings farther than the nest. Come, let us go home.”
12
THE house servants were all moving with more alacrity and more cheerful demeanor than they had shown since my mother died. They even seemed glad to see me home again. The maid hastened to heat water when I asked, and Maistro Attilio, at my polite request, lent me his razor. I bathed several times over, inexpertly scraped the fuzz off my face, dressed in clean tunic and hose, and joined my father and uncle in the main room, where the tile stove was.
“Now,” I said, “I want to hear about your travels. All about everywhere you have been.”
“Dear God, not again,” Uncle Mafio groaned. “We have been let talk of nothing else.”
“Time enough for that later, Marco,” said my father. “All things in their time. Let us speak now of your own adventures.”
“They are over now,” I said hastily. “I would rather hear of new things.”
But they would not relent. So I told them, fully and frankly, everything that had happened since my first
