“I don’t pay you to take satisfaction in my discomfort,” Geraint pointed out. “Come on, let’s find a cab.”
“Not a gondola?” Serrin queried.
“They do have bridges,” Michael said gently.
“Yes, I suppose so,” Serrin mumbled.
The usual backhander was required to get them through the formalities of customs, even on a Sunday night. Though resplendent in the Doge’s livery, the opulence of the officials couldn’t have contrasted more sharply with their manner. Then the five of them had to squeeze into a small cab, which demonstrated its supreme lack of any suspension as it coughed and wheezed its way southwest.
“Frag me, my arse feels like I just got a housebrick suppository. I’ve had more comfortable rides on the back roads of Pakistan,” Streak grumbled. Hearing him, the driver pointed out in colorful language that the elf was more than welcome to get out and go there right now preferably in a hearse.
“Yes, yes, we’re sorry,” Michael said soothingly.
“No, we’re bloody not,” Streak yelled. “We don’t have to be so sodding English all the rakking time and put up with such crap. Listen, matey, this is a genuine English lord in the back seat here and he deserves better. So button your lip or I’ll put some lead in the back of your head. Prat!”
Stunned by this rejoinder, the driver said nothing and even appeared to drive a little more slowly so that the vehicle didn’t rattle quite so badly. Michael glowered at the elf, who, in a moment of reckless abandon, simply stuck his tongue out at him and raised a single expressive digit.
The journey took mercifully less time than they’d feared. Entering the city Itself, they drove over the tiny bridges of the Castello and west into San Marco, the heart of the city, and into the Piazza San Marco itself, drawing up opposite the forbidding height of the Campanile with the mighty basilica just behind them. They got out of the car and Michael muttered some words of apology to the driver and gave him a thoroughly undeserved tip, much to Streak’s disgust.
First out of the vehicle, Kristen hardly knew whether to look at the basilica and the palace to her left, or the great tower before her She turned from one to the other and back again, and then to her husband, a look of sheer wonder on her face.
“This is incredible,” was all she could manage to say. Serrin stood behind her and put his arms around her and held her, sharing her delight as she took in the splendor of the buildings.
“You say anything sarcastic,” Michael said to Streak, “and I’ll kill you. Get the luggage inside.”
“Yes, Your Lordshipness,” Streak grinned, grabbing a couple of bags and making for the noisy cafe.
It hadn’t changed much in the decade or so since Michael and Geraint had stayed in Quadri’s. The clientele certainly seemed the same: students nursing one last coffee; a cabal of down-at-the-heel artists doping likewise; some ill-disguised tourists, obviously wealthy and thus ripe for plucking by the local predators; and some off-duty officials and soldiery from the Doge’s palace, the latter confident in their uniforms, enjoying the looks of respect the foreigners gave them and behaving rather less badly perhaps than soldiers usually do in any civilized location. The place was noisy, but not rowdy, and Michael smiled as he approached the bar to pay and collect the keys to their reserved rooms.
“You won’t remember me, Claudio, but I haven’t forgotten how good it is here,” he said to the owner. The owner’s hair was more streaked with silver now, and his waist a little thicker, but a decade of middle age hadn’t changed him overmuch, his dark brown eyes narrowed a little as he scrutinized his guest.
“No, no, I do. Michael! It is Michael. But I forget your second name,” he said apologetically.
“Your wife, I think, took our booking. How is Lucrezia?”
“Michael Sutherland! I remember you! And that nobleman friend of yours-he was not English, I remember, but he was as English as any Englishman.” Claudio grinned widely. “Is he with you? I remember him. One or two of the ladies remember him too.”
“Yes, I’m sure they do, and yes, he is with us, and he’s a Welshman,” Michael said all in one go. “It’s good to see you again.”
“And my wife is well,” Claudio said.
“And I hope she’ll be happy to receive this,” Michael said, handing over a small cloth-covered box. The man looked a trifle suspicious and opened the hinged lid. Inside was a small replica axe, long-handled and fashioned in pure silver, with a small booklet accompanying it. He certainly hadn’t planned on bringing it. He’d discovered it in one of the zip-fastened pockets of one of his travel bags, forgotten entirely when or why he’d bought it, but it seemed to fit the bill.
“It’s a replica of the axe that beheaded two of the wives of our King Henry the Eighth,” Michael told him conspiratorially. “Created by the silversmiths of the Tower of London. The original axe was used,” he said slyly, nodding his head secretively and barely managing to keep from winking, “to deal with wives who were not always as obedient as their husbands might wish.”
For a ghastly moment be thought he’d mistaken Claudio’s sense of humor, and the magnificent rows he had with his wife. Inside one week he and Geraint had seen half a dozen items of crockery flung by the fierce redhead at her husband before the delighted customers at the cafe. Then the man burst into a huge laugh and reached across the wooden counter, grabbed Michael by the shoulders and kissed him on both cheeks.
“You are a wicked, mischievous Englishman,” the man laughed. “She will be delighted with it. I will see to it.”
“I hope so.” Michael was laughing now too, ignoring the intense garlic aroma that lingered from the man’s greeting.
“Ah, so here is the lordship now, yes.” Claudio beamed as Geraint, Serrin, and Kristen pushed past Streak as he struggled with the Last of the bags. “Hey!” he announced to the multitude. “This is an English lordship staying at my place! What you think of that?”
“Oh, shit,” Michael said between clenched teeth. Anyone who managed to trace them to Venice wouldn’t find it hard to locate them now. English nobility visiting Venice would hardly be unusual, but staying here would be. That was the whole point of coming here. Geraint glowered at him, and then had to force himself to smile as various comments, some respectful but most ribald, were hooted at him from various quarters of the cafe. Doing the only thing he could, he bowed to the customers, who cheered him and then returned to their wine.
“Thanks for that,” he snarled at Michael as they climbed the rickety wooden steps. “Why not put up a poster and advertise our presence?”
“It would have been less effective,” Michael said sadly. When they got to the landing, Geraint was still visibly seething. Kristen took a determined step forward and faced him squarely, hands on her hips.
“You’re not angry,” she told him. She grabbed him by the arm and half-dragged him over to the small window facing south. “Look,” she said.
“It’s the piazza,” he said, wondering what she meant. She stared at him. He almost had to look away; she was very intense, her body stiff.
“I said look, pampoen,” she repeated, using the Africans for idiot. “Look at it, look at it. Look at those horses, they’re almost alive.” She was pointing to the gilded bronze horses of St. Mark prancing above the huge central doorways of the basilica. “And look at that tower, it reaches up to heaven. Now don’t you dare to be angry when this is so beautiful.”
Geraint understood what she meant and what she was telling, and for a moment he felt a tinge of some small sadness that he couldn’t feel the same about the place. But he had forebodings about the city after what he’d seen in the Tarot cards, and besides that he carried his own troubles, he didn’t have eyes to see the wonder of San Marco right then.