The Venetian (35 page)
Authors: Mark Tricarico
Petri spun back, catching the corner of the desk with his hip. The third soldier charged the deputy as he raised the knife again, slicing downward with his sword and severing Petri’s hand. It came away cleanly, easily, as though it had never been there at all. Petri screamed and fell to his knees, his eyes rolling wildly. Paolo scrambled up off the floor, the room spinning. He clutched at his arm, blood seeping through his fingers, and moved to the other side of the desk. The soldier was covering the deputy with his sword. Petri reached for his severed hand, clumsily grabbing at the dagger. The detached hand slid away from him on the wet floor.
Paolo gazed dumbly at the surreal scene—a man trying to pick up his own hand as it slid away as though playing a game with its owner. Petri stood up, placing a foot on the hand to keep it still, and pulled the knife from the dead fingers still clutching the blade. He straightened up, his legs unsteady.
“If you move, you die,” said the soldier.
Petri’s body was quivering. He smiled, his grin soiled red. He looked at Zambrotta. “So you know. But it’s too late. Goa will fall, followed by the rest. The Senate will debate endlessly, the cowards, just as they did when they gave Constantinople to the heathen Turks. Your beloved Venice will lose the spice trade and will die as she deserves, without honor.” These last words almost unintelligible as Petri swayed, his eyes fluttering, and nearly fell. He steadied himself, looked down at the bloody stump where his hand once was. He smiled again, his glassy eyes taking in the whole room before settling on Zambrotta. “I look forward to our time together in Hell, Stefano,” he said, raising his remaining hand.
“No!” the soldier yelled as Petri raked the blade across his own neck, his eyes widening as his throat opened, all of it ending as it had begun, with an Avesari son awash in blood.
Thirty Six
C
haya stirred the rice, the sweet tang of raisins heavy in the air. Bercu and Paolo sipped wine at the table. He had told them the tale as soon as he had returned, once Chaya had tended to his arm and hand. The cuts had been deep, threatening infection. The stitching up was painful but Paolo had barely noticed—just the latest trial for his body to endure. After so much helpless waiting, Chaya descended upon his wounds with a singular determination. She and her father had both been awake, hovering at the door. She had rushed at him, kissed him passionately, weeping unashamedly. It was becoming an embarrassing habit she would later say. He held her, couldn’t let go, every emotion he possessed pouring out into her hair, onto her clothes, her skin. Bercu had to gently pry them apart and have Chaya tend to Paolo’s injuries. He had slept the entire next day, through the night and the day after, waking just in time for supper.
They sat together at the table, a family of sorts born of loss, despair, rage, and hope. Paolo had no idea what would come next and was content, for the moment, to not know or even care. He inhaled the aroma of the goose salami, the pepper and garlic, clove, and ginger. Was it true? Were these the things to fill his days now, something as simple, as wondrous, as a delicious salami? He tasted the meat, the bite of the pepper. The spice. He thought of Ciro, of his father. He thought of his mother and her broken heart, of a family gone. No, a family taken. He gently pushed the plate away. Chaya glanced at him anxiously.
“Paolo,” she said softly. “You’ve slept for nearly two days, but now you are awake. You must be famished, you must eat. Do you not like it?”
“No,” he replied soothingly. “It is delicious, truly. The spices…wonderful.” He smiled sadly.
“Ah,” said Bercu.
Chaya looked inquiringly at her father.
“The spices, my sweet,” he said softly. He looked at Paolo. “They are the cause of all this misfortune, yes?”
Paolo nodded. “I cannot fathom that such a small thing could bring men to do the evil I have seen.” He spoke in a monotone, staring at his food as though in a trance. “We are at the height of civilization. We trade with the world. We study the stars and can turn out a fleet of galleys in a matter of weeks. And yet we torture and kill and murder for a few coins. We are little more than animals.”
Bercu laid a hand on Paolo’s shoulder. “It is true my friend, but not so simple I’m afraid. Some men are born evil. This I believe. But most are not. Petri was a good man once, a dutiful son, a proud grandson. I do not believe in fate. Men may travel many paths, have the capacity to be many different men. It can be but a small thing—what may seem to be of little consequence at the time—that can alter a man’s destiny. A good man becomes a monster and even he may not know how it happened. Greed and envy, hate and vengeance, they will always be with us. In that you are correct. We create beauty, as your father did. We turn the wheels of the world with commerce. But we should never forget the things that truly drive us. What makes us better, and so much worse, is that we are intelligent, and ambitious, and ruled by emotion, as much as we would like to think otherwise. It is true that temples of reason have been built, but they have been destroyed just as well. And bringing them down was oh so much easier.”
Bercu paused, smiled sadly, looking at Paolo and Chaya in turn. It was a tired gesture. “And when our so-called higher callings mix with our baser nature…” His voice trailed off, the sorrow weighing it down. It was the voice of a man who had seen too much. “May God help us.”
Paolo looked at Bercu and then at Chaya, considered the three of them, victims who had managed to survive, the still-living casualties of La Serenissima. The city took what it wanted, did what it pleased without remorse, without fear of recompense. But what could they do? Where could they go? Paolo had felt alive to the world but dead inside, but now, perhaps no longer. So he would stay. He could still feel, and that was at least something. And he was he knew, despite everything, above all and still, a Venetian.
Historical Note
Alfonso de Albuquerque seized Goa in 1510. Following its capture, he pursued the Portuguese plan of establishing naval dominance in the Indian Ocean—and controlling the spice trade—by taking the three key emporia of Malacca, Aden, and Hormuz. He seized Malacca in 1511 with a fleet of 16 ships and a force of 1000 men, defeating a Malaccan army of 4000. Two years later, Albuquerque laid siege to Aden. Unlike Malacca, Aden was well-fortified and Albuquerque was forced to withdraw. Despite repeated attempts, the Portuguese never succeeded in taking Aden, and their failure meant that Portuguese control of Indian Ocean trade was only partial. Albuquerque succeeded in taking Hormuz in 1514.
At the time Hormuz, located on a barren island without wood or water, was one of the richest cities in the world. And while the Portuguese enjoyed the fruits of their conquests, their failure to take Aden proved costly. By 1545, pepper was once again beginning to arrive in Alexandria, and by 1560, Alexandria was supplying Venice with as much pepper and spices as it had before the discovery of the Cape route to India.
Goa would remain the capital of the Portuguese seaborne empire, the
Estado da India
, until 1961.
Author’s Note
In
The Venetian
I have attempted to remain as historically accurate as possible. Inevitably research will uncover slightly varied accounts of the same historical details and events, and I have remained as faithful to what I believed to be the truth as possible. In some cases, I have taken slight liberties with certain historical facts in order to better maintain a compelling narrative. For example, it is suspected but not definitively confirmed that a Venetian lighthouse in the harbor of Rethymno on the island of Crete predated the current Egyptian lighthouse. It is this “suspected” structure to which I refer in the book.
Acknowledgements
The research for
The Venetian
took me to a variety of wonderful sources and I am indebted to a number of books on Venice and the spice trade. Any list of such books must begin with John Julius Norwich’s classic
A History of Venice
(Vintage Books, 1989). Thomas Madden’s
Venice: A New History
(Viking, 2012) was also indispensible and will no doubt become a classic in its own right.
Roger Crowley helped me immeasurably with a pair of scholarly works. His
City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas
(Random House, 2012) is a brilliant treatise on the city’s economic history while
1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West
(Hachette Books, 2006) wonderfully illustrated the conflicts, partnerships, and cross-cultural influences between East and West.
Michael Krondl’s
The Taste of Conquest: The Rise and Fall of the Three Great Cities of Spice
(Ballantine Books, 2008) illuminated one of the most fascinating and fiercely competitive eras of human history, while William Bernstein’s wonderful
A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World
(Grove Press, 2009) shows us that “globalization” is far from a new concept.
I am also indebted to a number of lesser-known but fascinating works. Brian Pullan’s
Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
(Methuen, London, 1968) pulled back the curtain on the inner workings of one of history’s greatest economies, and
A 14th-Century Archery Treatise in Mamluk Kipchak
(Simurg, Istanbul, 2002) by Kurtulus Öztopçu brought to life the power and grace of this warrior people.
I must also thank my incredible production team, editor Susan Cole, cover designer Hoagy de la Plante, map designer Andy Bates, and print formatter Heather Adkins, whose patience was most assuredly appreciated.
Very special thanks go to those friends and family members who offered their advice and encouragement along the way, and finally a heartfelt thank you to Kimberley Cameron and Barbara Peters, two consummate professionals whose advice and guidance will always be remembered.
About the Author
Mark Tricarico is a former advertising writer and Naval Officer. Holding both finance and law degrees, he is fascinated by the sea and the commercial cultures that have risen, and fallen, by its hand.
The Venetian
is his first novel.
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