Q, Luther Blissett [children's ebooks online .txt] 📗

Coast of Ferrara, four days later

The sailors haul the long narrow boat on to dry land.

With my good arm I help Demetra to pull up the hem of her water-logged cloak. Perna, on the other side, up to his waist, whispers a curse.

We stop on the sand, beneath an opaque sun that gives no warmth.

Demetra touches my bandage. ‘Careful not to bathe the wound. And eat a lot of meat, you’ve lost a load of blood.’

I smile at her, her make-up barely covers the bruises on her face.

‘Don’t worry, you did a fantastic job with that wretched arm of mine. It’ll be as good as new. Jo�o and Bernardo shake hands with little Pietro.

‘Are you sure?’

Perna spreads his arms, the stitches on his cheekbone mean that he has to keep one eye half closed. ‘Let’s go, Jo�o, can you imagine me among the Mohammedans? Turbans don’t suit me, and those people don’t even drink wine. They drink nothing but water! No, thanks, that won’t do for Pietro Perna of Lucca. I’d rather stay here.’

He casts a contented glance at Demetra. ‘I’ll be in good company.’

Bernardo hugs him and lifts him in the air.

Duarte kisses him on his uninjured cheek, making him blush.

Demetra’s emerald eyes are bright.

I stroke her cheek. ‘What are you going to do now?’

‘I’ll start over again somewhere, I think. Or maybe I’ll accept Pietro’s proposition. I’ll be fine, don’t worry.’

Perna’s embarrassed. ‘Ferrara’s always a good market, you know? A good place to start. I still have a few contacts scattered here and there around Italy, there’ll be a lot to do. If they go on printing books, my friend, don’t worry, men’s ingenuity will find away of getting around Indexes and maybe, who knows, they might one day abolish them altogether. They’ll always need someone going around selling books, you can bank on it.’

‘When you say that, Pietro, it sounds like a guarantee.’

He laughs, moved. We hug.

Jo�o points to the path along the edge of the pine forest. ‘Your carriage awaits you.’

Pietro picks up his bag. ‘Bye, kraut.’ He lowers his voice. ‘Watch your arse among the Mohammedans, and careful where you stick your cock, do you hear me?’ Then he smiles. ‘Bye, everyone!’

Demetra says, ‘Good luck, Ludovico. And bon voyage.’

‘The best of luck to both of you.’

They are walking on the damp sand. He small and fat, she tall and elegant. On the edge of the trees, Perna turns towards us, to wave a last farewell. He shouts something that disappears on the wind.

We watch him vanishing among the pines.

Jo�o comes up beside me. ‘We’ve got to go. Donna Beatrice’s boat will have reached the ship already.’

She welcomes us on to the deck of the flagship of the Miquez fleet. The wind has loosened some locks of hair, without taking away any of her feminine fascination, in fact giving her a sensual air that sends the stomach and the heart plummeting.

I kiss her hand, holding it between both of mine for a moment. ‘The prospect of travelling by your side makes defeat less bitter, Beatrice.’

She gently brushes the hair out of her face. ‘Defeat, Ludovico? Do you really think so? Aren’t we still alive, and free to plough the waves?’

Bernardo calls some orders to the captain of the ship, and whistles and warnings run from one end of the deck to the other.�

I smile at her. ‘You’re right.’

I don’t add anything else. Her daughter and her young servant go with her to her cabin.

From the quarter-deck Jo�o beckons me to join him.

‘The captain says the wind is with us. Better not to waste it. You’ll reach Lissa in a few days at the most. Then Ragusa. Two more days to Corfu. Once you’ve made it to Xanthe you’ll be out of reach of the Venetians.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

He lowers his eyes. ‘Bernardo and I are going back to Venice.’

‘Are you out of your mind? They want to kill you.’

The Sephardi stares at the coastline, blurred by the mist.

He sighs.

‘Ludovico, you can’t understand. We’re a family: we have an inheritance to defend. My task is to get back as much as I can from the claws of the Venetians. And believe me, it’s not a task that I’ve chosen for myself.’

I instinctively turn towards Beatrice’s cabin.

The Miquez smile. ‘In a sense I’m on the payroll as well.’�

He stares at the coast again. ‘We can’t leave everything in Venice.’

‘Do you think they’ll let you take all the loot right out from under their noses, after all they’ve done to fuck you over?’

‘Not at all. I’ll have to use diplomacy, deceit and maybe even a bit of force. All the weapons in the Miquez arsenal.’

He gets a laugh out of me.

‘And then there’s another reason for going back. The family I’m telling you about is as big as a nation. In Venice there are five thousand Marrani, and they all risk imprisonment or death. I have to find away to get as many of them out as I can.’

I nod.

‘What are we going to do in the Sultan’s lands?’

‘You’ll like Constantinople, you’ll see. The biggest city in the world, more than half a million people. Many people there owe us favours as well, Suleyman most of all.’

‘What kind of favours? The ones a certain Tanusin Bey was accusing you of?’

He smiles. ‘Ludovico, the house of Miquez is as big as the world. For each door that closes, another must open.’ A stout clap on the shoulder. ‘Hasta luego, my friend. We’ll meet up again in Constantinople.’

Jo�o goes down on to the deck, where Duarte is already waiting for him along with his brother.

They reach the little boat moored under the ship. The sail fills with a snap.

I watch the boat slip away, while the captain of the flagship gives the order to hoist the anchor.

*

Off the coast of Romagna, paralysed with cold, I stopped studying the horizon,.

Below deck I stretch my aching bones on a folding bed. Beatrice is waiting for me, but first a muddle of thoughts and sensations cries out to be untangled.

Decrepit pages, now nothing but dust on the past thirty years.

The coin of a kingdom that lasted only a single day.

The copy of a book that will leave no trace.

A notebook full of jottings.

The strangest legacy that fate could have entrusted to me.

Heinrich Gresbeck, or whatever his name was, is the final face to take its place in the gallery of ghosts. Maybe his best days were the ones he spent by my side. Maybe that’s how I should remember him.

He wanted to be killed by my hand, rather than by one of Carafa’s assassins. Instead he fell victim to the most ludicrous of my enemies and his own machinations. The Mule: a miserable pimp who wanted to avenge an insult, taking advantage of the fury that had been stirred up against the Jews. I should have killed him then. I find myself laughing again, as I have done a lot lately: the destinies of the powerful, the destinies of men all hanging on the actions of one stupid arsehole.

Manelfi’s confession was consumed in the flames. No one will ever know that those few pages could have changed the course of events for ever. Details are escaping, the minor shades who populated the story are slipping away, forgotten. Rogues, mean little clerics, godless