Tim Willocks

  Tannhauser recoiled as if punched in the chest. “I would see this remarkable shew stone.”

  “I’m perplexed, sir,” she said. “I was given to understand that you had little faith in God.”

  “In these benighted times such libels can cost a man his life.”

  “I meant only that I’m amazed by the credence you’re prepared to give Amparo’s visions.”

  “Charlatans abound, but Amparo is quite without guile. Even so, purity of heart is no defense when it comes to the Inquisition. Indeed, such purity is all the more damning. I knew another with such insight and he paid the price.” He dropped his eyes for a moment, as if the memory were a grim one. “But then we’re all lost in a universe infinitely larger than we can know. Or even imagine.”

  He looked at her.

  “My friend Petrus Grubenius believed that even the sun is at the center of nothing more than its own small handful of cosmic dust. What is visible, what is known, is little compared to what is not, and most notions of God thrive on our ignorance. Yet the existence of the stars and constellations—and their influence upon us—of angels good and bad, of realms and hidden forces that lie beyond our grasp and beyond our dreams, does not require the existence of a governing deity. Nor does the fact of being demand a theory of Creation, paradox though that may seem, for if Eternity has no end, then perhaps it had no beginning. That there is flux is evident, for here we are, tossed like wreckage on a turbulent sea. That there are countless subtle patterns worked into that flux is evident too. Even blind Chaos has its purpose. And Fate is a web whose threads we acknowledge only when once entangled. But pattern or purpose or no, religion brings forth mighty legions of fools, that they may call each other devils and deny the inner nature of Things. There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger, yes. And God sent His only begotten Son to die on the Cross, yes. I’ve worshipped at mosque and altar both, because I was told to, and I obeyed. But I heard God’s voice in neither, nor felt His Grace. In the end, I heard only the braying of the book burners and the whimper of an inextinguishable fear.”

  Carla stared at him. She felt more disconcerted than ever. Yet she realized that she knew Things that he did not. “I don’t have the learning to contradict you,” she said, “but I know that the cruelty of men cannot be laid at God’s door.”

  “That’s a comfort I’ll remember at my execution.”

  “The Grace of God is a gift.”

  She said this with enough conviction to give him pause. He nodded in respect.

  “Then I’ve not done enough to earn it,” he said. “The approved means, so I’ve been told, is through a surfeit of sorrow, a commodity which the Roman Church prizes highly.”

  “The Grace of God can’t be earned. It can only be accepted—by you no less than any if you’d open your heart. If you’d open your heart to the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

  “No doubt.” He smiled in a way that left her feeling patronized. “But let’s leave that to another day and settle the matter in hand. Who was the boy’s father?”

  She hesitated. “A monk.”

  “Well, well. Tell me more.”

  “I was fifteen years old, my father’s only child. My pregnancy brought extreme shame upon my family and, I was told, hastened the death of my dear mother.”

  Tannhauser snorted, as if he reckoned this latter an odious fable.

  “Be that as it may, my father had the infant taken away as soon as he was born. I never saw my babe again and know nothing more of his fate.”

  “A common enough tale,” Tannhauser said.

  Carla flinched.

  He shrugged. “Anyone may fall into the trap of passion. Sicilian fathers are jealous of their daughters’ virtue. And when it comes to shirking the consequences of lust, priests have a firm advantage over most. The Messina docks swarm with such foundlings and their lot is grim.” He bunched one fist to reassure her. “But if your boy is alive, he’ll be strong. Have you any idea where he was placed?”

  “The foundlings are usually taken to the Sacred Infirmary, in the Borgo, then placed with a wet nurse. Once they’re weaned, boys are raised in the camerata—the orphanage—until the age of three, then, if a family is available, they’re fostered.”

  “Twelve years,” he mused. “That’s a long time to wait before attempting to reclaim your child.”

  “As I told you, I‘m a coward.”

  His mouth twisted with impatience. “This face you put forward, of one who lacks courage, is a false face. Your actions contradict it at every turn. Be assured, it does not become you and it will not win my pity. On the other hand, the truth might.”

  “I was considered unfit for the better kind of marriage that my father had planned,” Carla began.

  “There are remedies for such problems,” Tannhauser said. “The dried blood of a pigeon or a hare, for instance, which when moistened by—”

  “Sir, faking my virginity was not an option to which I gave great thought. Mdina is not Paris and fornication is not in fashion. The oppression under which I labored was very considerable. My parents were united against me and my only solace was the God you so elegantly deny. I repeat I was fifteen years old. My marriage contract—with a man whose very name was unknown to me—was agreed by the time my son was born. After my child was taken, I fell into a profound melancholia, and in that state was shipped to Aquitaine. I do not want your pity. At most I seek to charter your expertise.”

  She paused to control the anger in her breast. He didn’t speak.

  “The Spanish Crown,” she continued, “allows inheritance of a noble title through the female line and in this inhered my only apparent worth. I was fortunate. The husband that the marriage agent secured was a rich and elderly widower who wanted to strengthen his petition for a title, and who was too sorely ailed by dropsy to want me at all. Indeed, he died within two years of our union. However, the letter patent was purchased from the King of France before he died, and my stepson—who is older than me—now comports himself the Comte de La Penautier. I, as per the successful outcome of the contract, inherited property and income enough to see me through my days. So as you see, sir, I am the product of a class far too civilized to resort to the blood of pigeons.”

  Her bitterness was not lost on Tannhauser. He inclined his head.

  “I consider myself chastised and beg your pardon,” he said.

  At this moment, Carla didn’t feel disposed to grant his wish.

  “In mitigation,” he said, “let me tell you that as a youth I entered a world from which women were entirely excluded. A society of men within which women were barely acknowledged to exist. A man who knew women—who desired them, who dreamed of them, who might love them—was weak. The janissaries were strong. It was not until I left their hearth, and abandoned every belief and broke every vow, and found myself in Venice, that I rediscovered the company of women at all. Because of this hiatus, women remain for me a very great mystery and even now I sometime give offense where none is intended.”

  No man had ever spoken to her with such frankness. His intention was surely not to captivate her, yet he did. For form’s sake she said, “No offense is taken and my pardon is granted.” Yet she sensed that he had not related this merely to excuse himself. She said, “Why do you tell me this?”

  “I will never know women in the way that other men do. By that same token, I hear your story in a way no other man can.”

  She stared at him, lost for a reply.

  “You never held your babe in your arms,” he said. “You never gave him suck. You never held his hand to guide him through his follies and his fears.”

  She took a sudden breath, as if stabbed, and turned away.

  “The babe was denied the things that any babe needs, as you were denied the things that any mother needs. You had no power to prevent this heinous crime, yet the guilt lies not where it belongs—with those who committed it—but with you, always, like a tombstone crushing your chest. Sometimes you wake in
the night and you cannot breathe. You see the babe’s face in your dreams and your heart breaks into pieces. His cries echo through an emptiness that nothing on this earth can fill. And, with time, the knowledge of your innocence scourges your conscience more cruelly than any evil you could ever do.”

  She turned to look at him. His eyes were fierce but held no malice.

  “Yes, I hear your story,” he said. “I understand. And better than you may imagine.”

  Carla felt tears burn in her throat. She swallowed.

  “How can you speak of these things with such poignant feeling?”

  “Never mind,” he said. “Let me ask you again, for you haven’t answered: Why do you seek the boy only now?”

  She gathered her wits, and mastered her sentiment and cleared her throat.

  “Some three months ago the Chevalier Adrien de La Rivière rested at my house for the night on his way to Marseilles, where he hoped to take ship to Malta. He knew of my origins and was sure of a civil welcome. When I learned that the island would likely fall to the Turk, I knew that I had to find my lost son, no matter what the cost, and for no matter how short a time God might allow us to be reunited.”

  Tannhauser showed no sign of finding this irrational. He nodded for her to go on.

  “I told myself this was absurd. But that same night I had a visitation. I saw Her by my bedside as vividly as I can see you now, Our Lady with the Holy Child Jesus in Her arms. I received in that moment a profound consolation. I realized that finding my boy was not a foolish whim. It was the Will of God. If I could not lay at least that claim to the truth of my own existence, then my life would continue as a sham. For I will tell you, Captain Tannhauser, my life has been a sham since the day I let them take my boy away from me—and did not raise my hand to stop them.”

  Tears blurred her vision. She feared he’d think them tears of self-pity, when in truth they were tears of rage. She brushed them away. Tannhauser pondered her in silence.

  “There,” she said. “I’ve told you everything. Now tell me if you’ll accept my commission and at what price. Whatever the latter may be, I will pay it.”

  “The monk who fathered the child,” said Tannhauser. “Who was he?”

  “Have I provided inadequate of scandal for you to take back to your tavern?”

  Tannhauser laughed, the rich easy laugh of before, and she was possessed by the sudden urge to strike him.

  “It would take a riper tale than yours to amuse that rabble,” he said. “No, my question is pertinent. Fornication may not be in fashion but there are more than a few knights’ bastards running round Malta. If your lover—I use the word with all respect—was a Hospitaller, and if he’s among those there gathered, it would be as well to know it.”

  “He was not a knight but a friar, of a different monastic order. He fled from Malta, without warning, before I myself was aware I was expecting a child.” She paused to contain another welling of anger. “I’ve heard nothing of the fellow since.”

  “He broke your heart,” said Tannhauser.

  Carla waited until she knew her voice would be steady. “It took me many years to forget his face. And I would forget his name if I could. But tell me to speak it and I will do so.”

  He conceded the point with a wave of his hand. “You speak with the anger of unhealed wounds,” he said. “But as long as he’s not the Bailiff of Lango, or some other such eminent knight, the fellow is of no consequence to me. Forget him by all means.”

  He rose from the bench and prowled a dozen paces around the rose beds. Then he stopped and walked back toward her.

  “So the task in hand, if I have it right, is to sail to Malta, evading the Turkish blockade, find a twelve-year-old boy of whose name and appearance we are ignorant, and then, with his acquiescence—which, by the way, cannot be taken for granted—retrace our path to Sicily without being hanged, either as deserters by the knights or as spies by the Grande Turke.”

  She looked at him, hardly able to speak. Her consternation puzzled him.

  “Do I misrepresent the endeavor?” he asked.

  “No. You broaden it beyond my expectations.”

  “How so?”

  “You’d bring my boy back to Sicily?”

  He spread his palms. “Is there any other point in going?”

  “I’d never seen beyond the dream of finding him and avowing myself his mother.” Carla felt her throat contract. She swallowed. “A passage to Malta and a moment of reunion—perhaps, with God’s blessing, a moment of forgiveness—are all I dared imagine.”

  “Such moments may well expiate your sins and soothe your conscience. They may even bring you consolation and joy. But they won’t spare you or your boy from Turkish steel. At that age he’ll be in the battle line, make no mistake. The Maltese make up the bulk of La Valette’s garrison. They’ll bear the brunt of the fight. And the brunt of the dying.”

  Carla felt sick. “Do you believe the fight is without hope?”

  “I wouldn’t say that, but it’s a brave roll of the die for any sporting man. Five faces favor the Turk, I should say, and but one the knights of the Religion. But whoever wins or loses my point stands. Victor and vanquished both will pay dearly in blood. Unless you want to make the journey only to watch the boy die, we must spirit him away.”

  “Spirit him away?” The phrase thrilled her. “Can that be done?”

  He sat back down on the bench beside her.

  “I’ve smuggled bulkier cargoes out of tighter havens. But first we must find him.”

  “I will know him when I see him, believe me,” she said.

  “Of course,” he said, without a trace of confidence. “But we can hardly ask La Valette to pull every youth in the Borgo out of the line so you can take your pick.”

  As quickly as it had soared, her heart plummeted. She’d traveled all this way on the basis of a fairy tale, so absorbed by her adventure in the wider world that she’d failed to consider the simplest practicalities. She was a fool. But Tannhauser, it was ever more clear, was nothing of the sort.

  “The Maltese have the Roman Church bred into the bone,” he said. “The boy must have been baptized, bastard or not, and his name duly entered in a parish register. If your information on the orphanage is sound, there should also be some record at the Sacred Infirmary.”

  “But as you’ve pointed out, we don’t know his name.”

  The effort he expended in concealing his expression made her feel her stupidity more keenly. “Indeed. But you do at least remember the date of his birth.”

  “The last day of October, 1552.”

  As with the boy’s age, his birth date seemed to strike him with some significance.

  “All Hallows’ Eve,” he said. “The Sun in Scorpio.” He shook his head. “Strange roads, Madame Contessa. Strange roads indeed have brought us to this garden above the sea.”

  He didn’t elaborate and before she could ask his meaning he clenched his fist.

  “But why did you not come to me much sooner? Six weeks you’ve been here? Why, we could’ve been in and out, with no more danger than that of drowning in the channel.”

  Bile rose in her throat. “Until this morning I was unaware of your existence.”

  Suspicion furrowed his brow. “And who made you thus aware?”

  “Fra Oliver Starkey, of the English langue.”

  She saw anger flare in his eyes, like the blue at the heart of a flame, and she feared he would abandon her. Why Starkey’s name so provoked him, she didn’t know.

  “Brother Starkey was most complimentary of your talents.”

  “I am sure he was.”

  “His letter—”

  “His letter?”

  “His letter said you were a man of remarkable ability, who feared nothing and held all authority—moral, legal, and religious—in outright contempt.” Why this should flatter him she wasn’t sure, but she believed it would. “He said that, above all, you were a man of your word.”

  “The English
man is more crafty than I gave him credit for.”

  At last she felt she had some useful intelligence to offer. “Fra Starkey said he could offer us a passage, on the Couronne.”

  His mood showed no sign of getting brighter. “I don’t doubt it.”

  “The Couronne leaves on the midnight tide.”

  “It will leave without us.”

  He snuffed out the anger and smiled.

  “War has a long arm, and its fingers are around my throat, but I will yet give it the slip.”

  “Would the Couronne not be the surest way of getting there?”

  “Perhaps. But a bargain made with the Devil is best reserved for an hour more desperate than this one.”

  He paused, as if at the brink of a steep drop. Then he nodded.

  “Entrust the arrangements to me and forget Brother Starkey. You’ll hear from me within two days at the most.”

  It took her a moment to realize that with these words he’d agreed to her request. She wanted to speak but couldn’t find the words. Tannhauser rose from the bench and bowed with conspicuous gallantry. He indicated the house.

  “Now, if I may, I’m curious to see the girl’s shew stone. Her vision glass.”

  Carla stood up. “We haven’t discussed your payment.”

  He hesitated, as if he’d already set his price but thought it exorbitant.

  He said, “If I return you and your son, safe, from Malta, I would have you marry me.”

  Carla was stunned. She thought she’d misheard him. “Marry you?”

  He seemed abashed and coughed. “Wedlock, Holy Matrimony, the reading of the banns. So forth.”

  For a moment her instincts thrilled. Dormant impulses stirred deep in her pelvis. She swayed with a sudden headiness. She felt his hand take her arm. She looked at him. His eyes were so clear she could read nothing in them. She didn’t know what it was he saw in her face, but he read it as some form of horror.

  “The request is a gross impertinence,” he said. “Yet my motives are not ungentlemanly, merely avaricious. Even the faint flavor of nobility that such a union would give me would be invaluable to my enterprises. The price I ask is high, yes. Given our relative stations, perhaps outrageous. But so is the risk inherent in your quest. We may contract, of course, that I have no rights to your property or your income, which I do not covet. Furthermore, you have my word of honor that I won’t take unwelcome advantage of our arrangement.”