It was cold in the passageway, in spite of the late-summer sun. I shivered a little. Jacopo embraced me once more. I felt a little of his strength, an intellectual vigour, pass into me. Then he was gone, back into the crowd, his jacket half-askew like that of any young Venetian blade, his head held high, black locks tossing in the fetid air that rose from the lagoon.
He was right too. None would have marked him for a Jew unless they knew him. Jacopo’s actions were his way of throwing in his hat with us. One way or another, our lives would be transformed before this day was out.
I tousled my hair, pulled my jacket up around my cheeks, then ventured out into the sea of jostling bodies. The concert was due to start any minute. Across the cobblestones, by the waterside, was some commotion. I stretched on tiptoe, anxious to see. There, to my dismay, was the squat figure of Marchese, hand upright through the masses, clutching some parchment. His croaky Roman voice came through the throng. He pushed towards La Pietà, looking as if he were ready to arrest Delapole on his own if need be.
This was too soon. I had expected warning — a troop of guards, one of the city officials at their head, coming to seize Delapole with due ceremony. Rebecca remained in his grasp.
Ignoring the clamour of complaints and the accompanying kicks and elbows, I dashed into the bustle and clawed my way towards him. This crowd was the largest I had ever seen, a thick and surly mass of humanity fighting for a view of the platform on the concert steps, where Delapole now stood beaming, hands behind his back, master of the ceremony.
There was so much noise none could hear what Marchese yelled. I fought my way towards him and finally succeeded in pressing through until I caught his arm and bade him calm down. His face was crimson with effort and anger, his breathing laboured.
“Sir!” I cried. “It is I! Scacchi!”
“Scacchi?”
He tugged me backwards with him, towards the water’s edge, where the noise was a little less overpowering.
“You are too soon,” I warned him. “You must have the watch with you, or he’ll surely flee.”
“The watch?” he spat back at me. “Why, they’re even more useless here than back in Rome. They’re waiting on the captain, who’s awash in some tavern, no doubt. Only then will they look at the papers I brought them. And…” He stared at me. “What happened to you, lad?”
“The Englishman’s doing. He murdered my master and puts the blame on me.”
“Then his game’s afoot, and he’ll not rest until he’s done. This girl of yours. You have freed her from his grasp?”
The podium was out of my view. I did not doubt Rebecca was there, as Delapole had instructed. I could only pray that Jacopo would see this through.
“Not yet. That’s another reason why you must wait for the watch. I fear he’ll take her hostage.”
Marchese looked at me as if I were an idiot. “She’s hostage already. Don’t you understand? Damn that coach. If we’d been here on time…”
“Sir.” I took his arm. He would, I thought, in one more minute become sufficiently composed to follow my advice. “I—”
“Dammit, Scacchi,” he cried, pointing into the crowd. “There’s his lad. As bold as brass. Why, I…”
And then he became silent. For Gobbo had wormed his way through the multitude of bodies and now stood before us, grinning like a monkey.
“Signor Marchese,” he said with a polite nod of his head. “And my dear friend Lorenzo. Why, I don’t know which of you keeps the worse company; that’s a fact. A murderer and a magistrate. What pretty conversations you must enjoy.”
“I’ll have your head on the block before this day is out,” Marchese warned darkly. “And your miserable master’s too.”
“Oh, I think not, sir. For we have only just embarked upon this circuit of the world, and it would be undignified and impolite to make such an early exit from our adventures.”
“You scum,” Marchese growled.
“Such words do not become a Roman gentleman,” Gobbo said, then turned his back upon us and made as if to reenter the throng.
The old man was furious. “Why, I’ll…”
The mind plays strange tricks. I realised what Gobbo intended in an instant, but witnessing its performance seemed to take an endless age. The old magistrate lunged forward and grabbed the back of his retreating shoulder. At that moment Gobbo spun upon his heels; I saw his left arm jerk back, then forward, thrusting upwards, ever upwards. Marchese gave a soft sigh; his head fell back. There was blood in his mouth. Then that squat body of his tumbled away from Gobbo’s blade, back into my arms. His weight was too great for me. He slumped to the cobbles. There was a dark, red stain in his abdomen. It was an assassin’s blow: a single stroke upwards, deep into the chest, rising until it struck the heart.
The curious milled around us, murmuring, puzzled, not yet appreciating the horror of what had just taken place. This moment hung in the balance, and still Gobbo stood opposite me, too bold to flee. I was unable to move.
“What’s the matter, Scacchi?” he cried across the poor old man’s corpse. “Afraid of a little blood?”
Which I was, but that was not why I hesitated. “He was a good man, Gobbo,” I said. “His testimony will see you brought to justice.”
He kept his blade hidden, covered as it was in Marchese’s blood, by his side. Bodies milled at my back. Faces began to turn. Gobbo sneered at me.
“Justice! Some good that’s done your friend, eh? Take that lily-white soul of yours and run, Lorenzo. It’s what the likes of us were born to do.”
I would not play his game. I shook my head. “I will see some justice done, Gobbo. I will hound you both until it is.”
This odd, deformed creature shrugged his shoulders and looked almost fondly at me, as he had done in those days when we first met and I was, to some extent, beneath his wing. “Then more fool you, lad. For I’ve taught you nothing. Here…”
His weapon flashed through the air. Without thinking, I caught it square in my hand. Marchese’s blood ran down the hilt and touched my palm.
Gobbo leapt into the crowd, waving his fists as if in fear. “Murder! Murder!” he yelled. “It is the Scacchi villain, citizens. Who, not content with murdering his master, has now felled some poor soul in broad daylight. Murder! Murder! Seize him ’fore he kills you next!”
I dropped the knife, but too late. All faces were upon me, panic and hatred written upon them. I retreated and felt a hand grip my shoulder. Gobbo was gone. I could hear his laughter disappearing with him, like leaves upon the wind.
With a sudden dive, I ducked beneath the arm of my captor and dodged through the crowd to cover the few yards to the water’s edge. Then, for the second time in a day, I sought safety in the mire, leaping from the jetty into the lagoon below. The black tide covered my head, and I kicked hard east for the further side of the promenade, beyond La Pietà, where the crowd would still, I hoped, be ignorant of Marchese’s fate. Some yards beyond the church, I surfaced, then made my way up the gondoliers’ stairs, rolling and bawling like a drunk so none came near me.
As I ran hell for leather into the wasteland on the border of the Arsenale, I heard a familiar sound behind, that of an orchestra starting the first few bars of one of Mr. Vivaldi’s favourite tunes. I fancied I could distinguish the tones of Rebecca’s Guarneri in the hubbub. Then the music was drowned by the din of boos and catcalls and yells. Not once looking back, I sought shelter in the bramble and elder scrub, where, teeth chattering, I tried to recover my wits.
There the beggar Lorenzo Scacchi wept for his friend Marchese, whose amity had been too short and whose absence made this day seem more dark and forbidding than before.