Q, Luther Blissett [children's ebooks online .txt] 📗
- Author: Luther Blissett
- Performer: 0156031965
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‘Tell the Moor the German wants to see him.’
Goliath sneered, or perhaps it was just his natural expression, before he slipped in through the door.
I waited until the narrow doorway opened up again and the Moor’s white teeth gleamed in the lantern light.
Dogfish smile.
No one noticed the lack of formalities: ‘A Greek, maybe a Dalmatian, likes playing dice, elegant clothes and a tattoo on his shoulder, a mermaid. He’s slashed one of my girls.’
The Moor didn’t bat an eyelid, but his expression said he’d heard about this as well: ‘On one condition, German. I pay the cops so that I’ll be left in peace: whatever you’ve got to sort out, do it outside. And leave your dagger with Kemal.’
I nodded, slipping the blade from its scabbard and handing it to the giant. The Moor stood aside to let me in.
The room inside was very quiet, nothing but the sound of dice rolling on tables and muttered curses.
Every race in the world had met up down there. Germans, Dutchmen, Spaniards dressed up to the nines, Turks and Croatians busy chalking up points on little boards hanging on the wall. No wine or spirits, no weapons: the Moor doesn’t want any trouble.
I reviewed them one by one, concentrating on their hands. Hands that told stories, missing fingers, lucky gloves, rings that would be valued on the spot and put on the table.
Then I saw the dice rolling abut in someone’s right hand, a little object made of bone running between his fingers, back and forth, every time his left hand got ready to throw.
He can’t have noticed anything till he felt the cobbles against his cheek.
Someone held his arm behind his back and at the same time bared his left shoulder.
He cursed in his own language, while the ivory dice rolled out of his pocket along with his luck.
Then all he could do was scream and watch the blade cleanly cutting off his fingers.
The fishmongers found them at dawn nailed up side by side on the market barriers.
In Venice, I’m Ludovico the German once again. And I’ve got to concentrate on the affairs of the brothel.
Venice, 12th February 1547
Miquez and Perna are in Milan.
The German has made it clear to everyone that it’s not a good idea to mess with him
Titian has been spotted on three different occasions. In Ferrara he even met up with Princess Ren�e of France, friend to the exiles and very interested in The Benefit of Christ Crucified. The Anabaptist has made a big impression.
I could be satisfied, but it isn’t enough. I’m thinking about a second trip. Treviso, Asolo, Bassano and Vicenza, then coming back to Venice. Now that I’ve got the measure of my Anabaptist preacher I can do things a lot faster. Ten days, two weeks at most.
Last night I dreamed about Kathleen and Eloi. Only confused images, I can’t remember anything else, but I woke with the sense of something hanging over everyone’s fate. Like a dark shadow pressing on the mind.
I dispelled my gloom with a walk to St Mark’s, and was greeted on the way by many people I don’t know. On my way back I had a sense of being followed, maybe a face I’d already spotted that morning in Campo San Casciano. I came back the long way just to confirm my suspicions. Two strangers, long black hooded cloaks, thirty yards behind me. Police, perhaps. It can’t have been hard to guess who’d cut off that Greek sailor’s fingers. I’m going to have to get used to being tailed as I move about the city. Another reason for setting off again soon.
*
‘Are you leaving again?’
She appeared silently behind me, her emerald eyes fixed on the bag that I’ve just shut.
I try to avoid her eye.
‘I’ll be back in three weeks.’
A sigh, and Demetra sits down on the bed beside my travelling bag. I waste some time knotting a handkerchief around my wrist: for a while now I haven’t been able to shake off a rheumatic pain, and I’ve had to restrict my movements.
‘If you’d stayed here, Sabina would have kept her lovely face.’
Finally I look at her. ‘That bastard paid for it. No one will ever touch a hair on that girl’s head ever again.’
‘You should have killed him.’
I try not to get too agitated. ‘Then we’d have had the cops on us. They followed me to the market this morning.’
Another sigh, to keep herself from reproaching me with Sabina’s scarred face again.
‘Is that why you’re going? You’re scared?’
‘There’s something I’ve got to do.’
‘Something more important than the Caratello?’
I stop. She’s right, I have to tell her something.
‘There are things that have to be done and that’s all there is to it.’
‘When men talk like that it either means they’re about to go away for ever or they’ve got a score to settle.’
I smile at her wisdom, sitting down beside her. ‘I’ll be back. This time you can count on it.’
‘Where are you going? Has it got anything to do with those Jews you’ve gone into business with?’
‘It’s better if you don’t know. There’s an old score to settle, you’re right. It’s as old as I am.’
Demetra shakes her head, a veil of sadness creeps over the green of her eyes. ‘You have to be careful in choosing your enemies, Ludovico. Don’t take on the wrong people.’
I give her a broad smile, she’s more concerned about me than she is about the brothel.
‘Don’t worry: I’ve got myself out of worse situations. It’s a speciality of mine.’
Q’s diary
Viterbo, 5th April 1547
Imperceptible movements. Slowly creeping insects, which you can only spot if you stare very hard and allow yourself to be transfixed by tiny ripples in the stalks of grass.
It’s hard to understand whether there’s a secret order in that swarming motion, a harmony, a purpose.
I’ve got to follow my intuition. Discover where the anthill is. Identify its supply routes.
I’m setting off for Milan. I’ve written to tell Carafa that I’m following a trail to find out who is responsible for this renewed distribution of The Benefit of Christ Crucified. It’s the truth. There isn’t much left to do in Viterbo now. Someone is helping the Spirituali without their knowledge, distributing the book all over the place. What do they hope to achieve? New supporters? Helping to unleash a pro-Reformation revolt?
It’s essential that we understand who they are, that we discover what they want.
Milan. The Inquisitors up there have arrested a converted Jew, accusing him of contributing to the distribution of a heretical work: The Benefit of Christ crucified.
It seems he’s Venetian, from Portugal originally: one Giovanni Miches.
What do the Jews have to do with all this?
Venice, 10th April 1547
�Jo�o and Bernardo Miquez stand out against the door like two great giants, compared to the balding little man peeping out between them, a book smuggler and expert in fine wines. He leaps out to meet me, grasping my outstretched hand.
‘It really is a pleasure, my old friend, you can’t imagine how things have been going… The books have been selling like hot cakes, practically up where the Most Catholic Emperor lives. Too bad we bumped into the Holy Office!’
I get Perna to shut up by greeting the two brothers: ‘Welcome home.’
A clap on the shoulder. ‘You’re not going to leave us parched, I hope. We’ve had precious little in the way of sustenance on the journey.’
‘I’ll get a bottle. Sit down and tell me everything.’
Perna pulls up a chair and launches in: ‘We managed to get away pretty well, thank fuck. They were about to get hold of your Jewish friend, that’s right, you can laugh about it now, but things were looking pretty fucking hairy for a moment there, I can tell you, and if it hadn’t for the sack of money he gave that fat friar we wouldn’t have been celebrating, if you know what I mean. Right now he’d be playing rummy with the rats in the dungeons of Milan.’
‘Calm down now. Tell me the whole story from the start.’
Perna sits up straight like a good boy, his hands drumming nervously on the table. Bernard is the one who speaks, while Jo�o flashes one of his captivating smiles.
‘The Inquisition kept him under arrest for three days. They accused him of selling heretical publications.’
I look at the older brother, who says nothing, encouraging his brother to continue. ‘Loads of questions. Someone must have been spying. It turned out all right in the end, we just had to hand over some money to the right people and they let him go, they weren’t that serious about it, but another time things mightn’t go quite so smoothly.’
A moment of silence, Perna gets restless, waiting for Jo�o to say something.
He crosses his tapering fingers, leaning his elbows on the table.
‘They’re exaggerating. Those people didn’t know a thing about the Benefit, they just had vague suspicions that something was up. Someone gave them my name and they came looking for me. That’s all. If they really had been on the scent, they wouldn’t have taken my money…’� a dismissive gesture, - ‘or else they’d have asked more questions.’
Our bookseller butts in: ‘Sure, sure, it’s easy for him, but we’ve got to be careful. I’m well aware they didn’t know a thing, those four black crows, but who’s going to go back to Milan now? Who? It’s scorched earth now as far as we’re concerned, capito? The whole duchy’s closed to us, there’s bugger all for us there, we can’t set foot in the place now without risking life and limb. How are we going to recover the outlay for the copies we’ve dispatched already?’
Jo�o reassures him: ‘We’ll make up for that money somewhere else.’
When we’re on the second round of wine, Perna says, ‘We might as well just forget about Milan. And yet we’ve all got to keep our eyes wide open: the Inquisition is getting better organised. Paul III is a coward, a plotter, but he won’t last for ever. Everyone’s fate is going to depend on the next Pope. Ours included.’
The three partners nod in unison. There’s no need to say anything more: we all share the same thoughts.
Q’s diary
Milan, 2nd May 1547
Carafa’s letter of introduction had the desired effect: I could tell from the sweat-drenched brow of friar Anselmo Ghini, and the emotional gestures of his colleagues. Everyone suddenly busying themselves about the place. Ears pricked, eyes down.
Brother Anselmo Ghini, 42 years old, the last two of those years spent minutely examining texts in search of heresy, on behalf of the Congregation of the Holy Office. He fiddled anxiously with his hands for the entire duration of the conversation, behind one of the desks in the reading room of the Dominican convent. The restless coming and going behind me didn’t let up for an instant, as though I myself were the inquisitor. Everyone in the room clearly had frayed nerves. We talked in low voices.
Giovanni Miches: the name was given to us by a bookseller found in possession of ten copies of the Benefit of Christ Crucified. Once his presence in the city was confirmed, Miches was arrested on 13th March. He was accompanied by his brother Bernardo, their attendant Odoardo Gomez and the bookseller Pietro Perna, although the latter were not kept in custody. The first interrogation was conducted by brother Anselmo Ghini.
Asked the reasons for his
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