He could hear her drop the phone and took in a breath. Like all killers, Seraphina had kept trophies. She hadn’t been able to resist. And it would be the skins that would damn her.
A normal woman – or a woman under threat, as Seraphina di Fattori claimed to be – would never keep such mementos.
Edward Hillstone was dead. But he had got his revenge.
Venice, 1556
I came to Venice from Rome. One of seven children and damaged at that. It was the year I was ten and was put upon a boat for Venice. They told us the Republic was like Heaven, that children cried to be admitted and food was plentiful. They said, I remember, that no one minded a twisted foot. That I would be welcomed, treasured for my difference.
I was not treasured. The boat was thrown about in the sea and made me sick, I leaned over the side and vomited, my face looking back at me from water as dark as a burnt candle stub. I am afraid of water, always have been. They took us to the quayside, pulled us up, pummelled and pinched, and people came to view us in the heat. I was still sick from the boat and stood like a goat, whining and trying to hide my deformity.
He was passing on the street and turned to the bargaining voices of the people, of those wanting little servants to pet and bully. I would not be chosen; I was not pretty, nor quick. I feared my house would be a poor place, my owner quick in temper. And I could not even speak when I was taken by the arm, and stumbled clumsily.
Come with me, he said. Come on, come with me.
He was tall, with a beard and a coaxing voice, and he walked at my pace without making me a laughing stock for limping. When we came to his home he unlocked a garden gate and guided me in. Lemons were hanging heavy from trees, oranges ripe in terracotta pots, a cat sunning itself by an open door.
Come with me, he said again.
I believed it then. That Venice was a Heaven children cried to enter. Mute, I looked around me, at paintings high as trees, at faces real as those I had just passed. On easels and against walls, canvases reeking of oil paint and linseed threw up scenarios of living things that were not living. He had depicted dogs, fur that was trembling to be stroked, water that would trick a river’s flow, and women so beautiful they prompted tears.
From that day on I was the master’s servant. I grew with Titian, had no talent to be honed, but served him as a child his father. Without a family, he loaned his to me. And so I grew to love him as I grew in age. I kept his studio, made his food, washed his clothes. Although there were many other servants, I let no one close. For Titian had rescued me. Had saved my life. No harm, I swore, would ever come to him. No injury. My life, no less, was forfeit should it serve him.
And so I watched. And so I learned. People do not see cripples. Or if they do, they think them idiots. I was no fool. And so I saw my master triumph. The Doge was his friend, kings admired him, Venice held him up as a cross before battle. And yet for all of this, he let the writer in.
It was a solemn day when Aretino came to Venice. Puffed up with reputation, eager to triumph, seeing in Titian a brilliance and a fullness of heart to massage dry. But Titian grew to love this ravenous dog. He loved the beast. He made excuses, feted him, advanced this corpulent bag of pus until his name did rival Titian’s own.
And he never once suspected what I knew.
It was last Thursday that Aretino came to Titian’s home and begged for entrance. As I well knew, my master would eventually relent. And so he did, letting this murderer, this traitor, this mountebank, enter his life again. And to what end? To what dank scandal? What unrivalled disgrace?
I made them supper, watched them eat. The pig wheezed and snuffled about his food, laughed, told stories, sought to beguile again. And Titian, watching like a chicken does a fox, was mesmerised by him. They ate. I served them. They drank. I poured the wine. Outside the sea waited for its next drowning.
And I waited too.
Aretino was talking of some dancer, some new whore, and paused, his sharp eyes startled. His hands, those bloodied hands, clutched for his throat as though some bone was stuck there. Titian turned, reached for his friend, but Aretino was already falling, dead before he found the floor. He never saw me tamper with his food. He never saw me pass a plate to him unlike my master’s own.
A single heartbeat took him from this world. May demons take him to the next.
The news went round Venice that Pietro Aretino was dead. Choked on his food. Died for his gluttony. A hundred victims revelled at his passing. Freed from his vicious pen, loosened from his lies and calumnies, out of reach of his thefts and plots and killings, the city is at peace. The Dog of Venice joins the Whore, and the Merchant also. The triumvirate of evil is now done.
And so he ends. And so the story ends.
Outside the sea is still, the moon red as a watermelon in the heated night. Fogs that have plagued us for months melt in the warm air while torches flicker on the canals and on the tide. Venice sleeps on, the sweet sea curled like a blanket around her. The church bells sleep also, as do the water rats. Behind locked doors, couples turn to each other and cling; somewhere a mother holds a child against her heart; and as the hours turn through the beating of the night, a clock chimes in the breaking dawn. The baker has now woken, and the priest rises and bows his head towards the cross.
And in his studio, Titian works on.
Epilogue
The Titian portrait of Angelico Vespucci was held by the UK police Art Squad at a secret location. It was kept with a number of another valuable retrieved works of art at a destination known to only a half-dozen select members of the police force. Hidden in a high-security building in the countryside, heavily alarmed and patrolled by dogs, impenetrable and secluded. Even the nearby villages had no idea of its whereabouts, or its purpose. Yet, on 4 November – on the anniversary of Larissa Vespucci’s murder, the Titian’s portrait of The Skin Hunter disappeared.
No one has ever recovered the painting of Angelico Vespucci.
But in Venice the rumour still holds.
When the portrait emerges, so will the man.
And they wait.
Bibliography
Titian – Ian G. Kennedy (Taschen)
Titian – Cecilia Gibellini (ed) (Rizzoli Art Classics)
Venetian Painting – John Steer (Thames and Hudson)
The World of Titian – Jay Williams (Time Life)
Bellini, Giorgione, Titian and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting. Exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington
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