“Watch him,” the secret service men said. “Watch him carefully and take note of every word he says. You have to be extremely wary of him. If he receives any mail you must find out who it is from. If he sends any, you must find out where it is addressed. Observe his every movement! It seems,” they whispered into the innkeeper’s ear, cupping their hands, “that he has a protector. Not even his grace, the prelate, can touch him.”
“Not for the time being,” added the innkeeper, sagely.
“Not for the time being,” echoed the secret service men, solemnly.
They departed on tiptoe, with gloomy expressions, oppressed by their cares. The innkeeper sat down in the tavern and sighed. He didn’t like notorious guests who roused the prelate’s or the police’s suspicion. He thought of the guest himself, the dark fires and embers that flickered in his sleepy eyes, and he was afraid. He thought of the dagger, the Venetian dagger, his guest’s sole possession, and was even more afraid. He thought of the news that dogged his guest’s footsteps and he began, silently, to curse.
“Teresa!” he barked angrily.
A girl entered, already dressed for bed. She was sixteen and held a burning candle in one hand while clutching her nightshirt with the other.
“Listen to me,” he whispered, and invited her to sit on his knee. “I can’t trust anyone except you. We have dangerous guests, Teresa. That gentleman…”
“From Venice?” the girl asked in a singsong schoolgirl voice.
“Venice yes, Venice,” he muttered nervously. “Straight from prison. Where the rats are. And the scaffold. Listen, Teresa. Mark his every word. Let your eyes and ears be ever at his keyhole. I love you like a daughter. Indeed, I have brought you up as I would my daughter, but if he calls you into the room, do not hesitate. Enter. You will take his breakfast in to him. Guard your virtue and watch him.”
“I will,” said the girl, then got up to return to her room, delicate as a shadow. At the door she stopped and complained in a thin, childish voice.
“I am afraid.”
“Me too,” said the innkeeper. “Now go to sleep. But first bring me a glass of red wine.”
All the same, none of them slept well that first night.
News
They slept in flurries, snoring, panting, and puffing, and, as they slept, were aware that something was happening to them. They sensed that someone was walking through the house. They sensed someone was calling them and that they should answer in ways they had never answered before. The question posed by the stranger was insolent, saucy, aggressive, and, above all, frightening and sad. But by the time they awoke in the morning they had forgotten it.
While they were sleeping the news rapidly spread: he had arrived, had escaped the Leads, had managed to row away from his birthplace in broad daylight, had thumbed his nose at their graces the terrifying lords of the Inquisition, had run rings round Lawrence the militia chief, had sprung the unfrocked friar, had more or less strolled from the doges’ citadel, had been spotted in Mestre bargaining with the driver of the mail coach, been observed sipping vermouth in a coffeehouse in Treviso, and there was one peasant who swore he had seen him at the border putting a spell on his cows. The news spread through Venetian palazzos, through suburban inns, and as it did so, cardinals, their graces the senators, hangmen, secret agents, spies, cardsharps, lovers and husbands, girls at mass and women in warm beds, laughed and exclaimed, “Hoho!” Or in full throat, with deep satisfaction, laughed out loud, “Haha!” Or giggled into their pillows or handkerchiefs, “Teehee!” Everyone was delighted he had escaped. By next evening the news had been announced to the Pope, who recalled him, remembering when he had personally presented him with some minor papal award, and he couldn’t help laughing. The news spread: in Venice, gondoliers leaned on their long oars and closely analyzed all the technical details of his escape and were glad, glad because he was a Venetian, because he had outwitted the authorities, and because there was someone stronger than tyrants or stones and chains, stronger even than the Leads. They spoke quietly, spitting into the water and rubbing their palms with satisfaction. The news spread and people’s hearts grew warm on hearing it. “What crime had he committed, after all?” they asked. “He gambled, and, good God, he might not have played an entirely honest hand, he certainly ran tables in low bars and wore a mask when playing with professional gamblers! But this was Venice, after all! Who didn’t?… And yes, he roughed up a few people who betrayed him and he lured women to his rented apartment in Murano, a little way from town, but how else do you spend your youth in Venice? And of course he was impudent, had a quick tongue and talked a lot. But was anyone silent in Venice?…”
So they muttered and, every so often, laughed. Because there was something good about the news, something satisfying and heartwarming. Because everyone knew the Inquisition had its teeth in one or another piece of their own flesh, that one or another part of them was already living in the Leads, and now somebody had demonstrated that a man could overcome despotism, lead roofs, and the police, that he was stronger than the messer grande, the emissary of the hangman, and the bringer of bad news. The news spread: in police stations they were slamming files on tables, officers went round shouting, magistrates listened with reddened ears to those accused of crimes and angrily sent men to prison, into exile, to the galleys, or to the scaffold. They spoke of him in churches, preached against him after mass for having concentrated all seven deadly sins in one accursed body, which, according to the priest, would boil in its own individual cauldron, then roast in a fire especially set aside for it in hell, forever. His name was even mentioned in the confessional booth by women with heads bowed low, who beat their breasts while accepting the prescribed penance. And everyone was pleased, for something good had happened in Venice, and in every village and town of the republic he passed through.
They slept, and smiled as they dreamed. Wherever he went they took greater care than usual to close their windows and doors by night, and behind closed shutters men would spend a long time talking to their wives. It was as if every feeling that yesterday had been ashes and embers had started to smoke and spout flames. He cast no spells on cows, but cowherds swore that calves born that year were prettier and that there were more of them. Women woke, fetched water from the well in wooden buckets, kindled fires in their kitchens, warmed pans of milk, set fruit out on glazed trays, suckled their infants, fed the men, swept out the bedrooms, changed the beds, and smiled as they worked. It was a smile that took some time to disappear from Venice, Tyrol, and Lombardy. The smile spread like a highly active and harmless infection: it even spread over the borders, so that they had heard of it in Munich, and waited for it, smiling in readiness, as they did in Paris where the tale of his escape was recounted to the king while he was hunting in the deer park, and he too smiled. And it was known in Parma, and in Turin, Vienna, and Moscow. And everywhere there was smiling. And the policemen, the magistrates, the militiamen and the spies — everyone whose business it was to keep people in the grip of fear of the authorities — went about their work suspiciously and in ill temper. Because there is nothing quite as dangerous as a man who will not yield to despotism.
They knew he had nothing but a dagger to call his own, but for several weeks they doubled the guard at border posts. They knew he had no accomplices and that he did not concern himself with politics, yet the chief executive of the Inquisition drew up a complete campaign strategy to recapture him, to entice him back into the cage, dead or alive, with gold or with violence, no matter what. They explained the details of his escape to the doge, that squat figure with piercing eyes, and he beat the table with his ringed fingers and swore to send the militiamen to the galleys. Senators gripped the creases of their silk coats with delicate yellow hands and clutched them closer to their bosoms, sitting silently in their armchairs in the great hall, sniffing the air through noses yellowed with diabetes, their faces expressionless, occasionally glancing up to examine the ceiling paintings or the main joists of the council room through narrowed lids while voting for new draconian measures, shrugging their shoulders and remaining silent.