The Gameshouse Page 3

  More objects from the box. A white mask, which, unlike many of the masks made for females, does not require the wearer to bite a handle between her lips to keep it in place. She may speak, strange liberation, though her face is unknown.

  Tarot cards. The Fool. The Three of Coins. The Knave of Swords. The Queen of Cups. The Seven of Staves. The Tower. The Priestess. The King of Coins. On the back of each card is written a name and a place of residence.

  A promissory note for five thousand ducats.

  A single golden coin. The face carved on it was none she knew, and the inscription is Latin. We know it now—how we know it!—a coin from ancient Rome, but with it no note nor an explanation. What is its purpose? Perhaps it will only become apparent when other tasks have been completed? Games, unlike life, have a structure, a pattern, an order to unlock. Play, and all mysteries shall be revealed.

  She laid it aside, sealed her box, blew out the candle and lay down to sleep.

  Chapter 8

  She placed one thousand ducats on the table.

  Jacamo de Orcelo watches it. What does he see in that purse? Ships? Chests of cloth, barrels of fish, precious spices from the East, slaves, grains? Or does he merely see casks of wine rolled across the pantry floor?

  For a while they stand there, husband and wife, on the opposite side of the gold, and their faces speak, rage in the arguments that their voices have no courage to express, until at last Thene says:

  —I’m going into a convent for three months to pray. You will find all things have been arranged. Goodbye.

  He screams then,—Whore, hussy, harlot, where did you get the gold? Where can you get more? and tries to grab her by the hair, but she punches him. It is not the open-palmed slap of a lady of house Orcelo, but rather it is her, herself, the Jew’s daughter, who hits him full in the face, and as he falls back bloodied, she gathers herself together and says,—If you want more, you will have to wait until I return.

  He sits on the floor, legs splayed, rump down, and for a moment is too shocked to move. Then the little boy within him comes out, and he weeps, and crawls on his belly to her feet, and kisses her shoe and says,—I love you, I love you, don’t go, I love you, where’s the money? I love you.

  She turns away.

  Chapter 9

  The house of Angelo Seluda is by a canal. Its lower floors are—in traditional fashion—a place of business, its middle floors for the family and its topmost reaches crawl with servants, clerks and men of trade, humbly appreciative of their post from a man so great as the master of this house. It has its own well, the surest mark of status, and there is something of the Byzantine in the patterns above the windows, the carvings on the wall, scratched to the tiniest detail, which tell of an old home for an ancient name.

  Thene examines it from across its private bridge and sees the statues raised to guard the entrance: Ares and Venus, hands clasped together in an arch above the gate. She feels a cat brush against her legs, curious at her curiosity; hears the push of oar through water, another supplicant coming up the canal to do homage to Angelo Seluda.

  She is afraid, but has already come too far.

  She loosens her fingers in their grey gloves and finds herself humming half a tune, a song she thought she had forgotten on the edge of her lips. She wears her mask, and coming to the door is stopped, challenged and when she speaks, surprise and distrust grow deeper on the faces of the lazy boys armed with clubs who accost her.

  —My letter, she says.—I can wait.

  She waits outside, five, ten, twenty minutes. In the time she stands there, we do not see her feet move, her back bend, her fingers ripple with impatience. Ares and Venus sweat in the face of her composure.

  A boy returns, his face humbler now, and says,—Please come in.

  She follows inside.

  The door shuts her from our view.

  Chapter 10

  Snatches of a conversation overheard through an open window.

  He is Angelo Seluda, and we have observed him before in the streets of Venice on his way to prayer, arguing with merchants fresh come to port, inspecting timber and glass, giving censure at the Doge’s palace, watching his rivals from between the cracks of the door. His family long ago discovered some secret sand, or some hidden colour, or mystic tincture—like all things in Venice, the detail is unclear—and took a great interest in glass. War has sometimes been unkind to this trade, but after every war there is always a great sighing of peace and, more importantly, a great many cracked windows to repair. And so on Murano his name is worth more than gold, and in the little islands that pepper the edge of the lagoon where twenty, thirty men at most inhabit and labour, Angelo Seluda is uncrowned king, Doge in all but name, commander of the workshops across the water. For too long he has laboured in the Senate, seeking advancement, but alas! He has always been a little too wealthy to escape envy, and thus his rivals have barred his advancement; yet he has never been quite wealthy enough to buy his way through this conundrum.

  His hair is grey, his beard is long and, as only the old and the great do, he wears a gown even in summer which reaches to his ankles, and a chain of gold about his neck, and a purple cap upon his skull, and his most prized possession is a brooch of golden fleece given to him, so the rumour says, by a Spanish king for some service against the Turk in a battle long since fought, long since forgotten.

  Or perhaps he bought it second-hand. Who can say, with a man like Seluda?

  His voice now, meeting hers.

  —I did not expect a woman, he says.

  —Nevertheless.

  —Can you play?

  —I would not have been chosen if I couldn’t.

  —The notion of putting my fate in the hand of a woman disquiets me. I was promised assistance from the Gameshouse in exchange for some… services. When I agreed to these terms, I had imagined more than this.

  —You will find I am very suited to the task.

  —May I see your face at least?

  —No.

  —Or know your name?

  —Not that either.

  —I am fighting for election to the Supreme Tribune. If I should win, I will command the Council of Forty in all but name, and what’s in a name when so much power is at stake? If I command the Council of Forty, I will rule the city beyond the power of any mere Doge. I know what my rewards are and how much is staked. What do you get and why do you care?

  —I win the game.

  —This isn’t a game.

  —Isn’t it? There are rules, boundaries, constraints on your action. Clear goals, tools to achieve them, a set table of rivals who must obey the same rules that you do if they wish to reach the same end. The only difference between these events now unfolding and any other game is the scale of the board.

  —Games should be enjoyable.

  —Levity and sincerity are not antonyms. We take pleasure in playing chess, but that does not mean we make wasteful moves. You have invested things of great weight into these coming events. Your honour, your prestige, your finances, the welfare of your family, your business, your servants, your future. Such matters can weigh heavy on a mind and cloud it to wisest judgement. I suggest that having the assistance and resources I offer, untainted as they are, will be of service to you.

  Seluda is silent a while. Then

  —What do you need?

  Chapter 11

  She takes a room in the top of his palazzo.

  The mask will not leave her face now, save for in those few, few moments when she is alone, high above the waters of the city.

  She needs pen, paper.

  The rest she can do for herself.

  A servant of Seluda is sent to the Doge’s palace with orders to wait and not move a muscle until he has heard who else will stand for the Supreme Tribunal. In all, seven names are called. She studies them, trawling through memories and faces, esteemed gentlemen half known from prayers at church or whispers on the wharves. Who of these seven are serious contenders, has something to gain
? She draws circles around four names, including Seluda’s, but nothing is to be taken for granted yet. Each party must be assessed, their business known, for even a minor rival who cannot win the prize on his own part may yet disrupt her activities in bidding for it.

  She expects Belligno to run, and indeed his name is one of the first that reaches her ears. Whether Belligno has decided to campaign for his own gain or because he hears Seluda too seeks the prize, she is not certain, but she pays a beggar and his daughter to observe all that Belligno does and report on those he is seen with, rumours that are uttered about his name. For two days they watch, and at the end of the second day there is still no sign that anyone plays Belligno, save himself.

  Faliere—jovial, smiling Faliere, who it is said prepared the poison himself that killed three of his guests at a feast some seven years ago, though equally it could have been a bad fish or a rotten egg. How can a man who smiles so boldly and laughs with such hearty appreciation of others be a poisoner? And then she looks a little closer and thinks perhaps he laughs as he prepares the brew? Perhaps, like a child making mud pies, he chuckles to himself as he stirs belladonna into his enemy’s wine, chortling at the thought of their eyes widening, their hearts racing, their minds clouded and tongues hysterical? Perhaps this same thought keeps him merry as he serves drink, and people mistake this continual self-entertainment with being a more generous spirit and think his humour is at their wit rather than his own?

  Or perhaps he never poisoned anyone and knows that it is good to be both loved and feared, and so laughs and is generous to his friends and lets the rumours persist of what he may do to his enemies?

  Paolo Tiapolo and Andrea Contarini are not only both strong candidates, but have the gall to attend mass together. She sits at the back of the church and observes them, on opposite sides of the aisle. They smile at each other, embrace as old friends:—Paolo, Paolo, so good to see you;—Andrea, your wife looks beautiful and I hear all is well with you?—and when the other’s back is turned they bend down and whisper to their wives and their secret companions,—There goes that bastard. Watch him—he’s a snake…

  Tiapolo has three daughters whom he has kept virginal and unmarried for an unfashionably long period of time. The eldest is nearly twenty-four and people are already questioning if the old maid is even capable of bearing children but now! Ah—clever now, clever Tiapolo, we understand! You were waiting for Brabano to die; you were waiting for the time as well as the place when each child might be most helpfully deployed in your cause. Well prepared, Tiapolo, well did you play the game, even before the game was begun.

  And Contarini? He has quarries on both this and the other side of the Adriatic Sea; his business is mortar, stone, brick, clay and those judicious men who have mastered all of the above. His children are long since married to wagon masters and marble merchants, so barely a building can be raised in the city now without the Contarinis’ mark etched above the door. Foolish men mistake the master for his trade, call Contarini “Old Man Stone” and say his wit is dull and heavy as the slabs of the coffin—yet how they change their tune, these laughing men, when they want an extension added to the top of their palazzos or repairs done to the inside of their wells! How then they flock to him, our master Contarini, and laugh at his jokes which are, we will concede, exceptionally dull and surprisingly crude, made only marginally funny by the hope of discounts gained through humour shared.

  These two—smiling Tiapolo and leaden Contarini—are rivals indeed, though each in their different way, and as she watches them bow before the bishops, she wonders what they make of her piece, or if they think of him at all.

  A flash of colour in the church, a smile caught in the corner of her eye. She looks, and then looks harder, astonished by what she sees. Puffed sleeves of cyan-blue, rings of silver and gold, and features familiar, manner known. Whoever is playing Tiapolo as their piece doesn’t bother to hide. He sits, proud as Zeus, directly behind his piece, his pawn, his king—whatever it is you may call these would-be masters of all they survey. He does not wear his mask in church, for to do so would be an offence to the Lord and the great servants of the Lord gathered there, but step outside and he wears it, a badge of prestige and power. It is not he himself who hides behind that carved smile and gold-rimmed eyes; no, rather it is he—himself, the great man, the player—that he wears instead of his face: lord of his dominion, master of the game.

  She watches him; she watches Tiapolo. She fears the piece more than the player.

  Though he has appeared at Mass, he vanishes by private barge, and for two days after she cannot find Contarini. He has moved, he is hidden, but let that not be seen as a sign of weakness, for when he needs to appear in the Doge’s palace, he is there, shaking hands, and when he leaves he does so by two private boats, one which turns left, the other right into the bay, and no man can know which of the hooded men that sit within it is the man himself. Contarini fears the blade of an assassin and his fear perhaps tells us the direction in which he too shall take this game. She makes no effort to track either of his gondolas. Assassins are crude tools and should only be played when the board has coalesced into something more coherent. Contarini will wait.

  At night, she lines the pieces up on her table. Faliere, Tiapolo, Contarini, Seluda. Do the other players study these as she does? Are they sitting alone with a single half-burned candle considering their enemies, their friends?

  (And now we see! Three unnamed rivals spread across the Venetian night. He, the one who is proud, so proud of his cleverness and his power, so rich on the satisfaction of his game, so aloof from humanity—he drinks at the high table with Tiapolo, and will go to bed drunk and wake late, and tell strangers that he has slept with Tiapolo’s wife, knowing no one will question him, and thinking it is because they are afraid.

  And he, who plays for Contarini, or on Contarini, depending how you look at the matter, watches the house of Seluda where even now Thene resides, and knows that his piece is a powerful man, and will not be happy until this rival is removed, and he feels the weight of a silver box given to him in the Gameshouse, and knows the power therein and wonders whether soon is too late to strike.

  And for the last?

  Why, like Thene herself, he sits alone in the shadows and considers his move.)

  Faliere, Tiapolo, Contarini, Seluda.

  And beneath them, a question. Why was Belligno not chosen as a piece? Why is she not playing him in this game of power and politics? His claim to the position on the Supreme Tribunal is strong, perhaps stronger than Seluda’s own. Why is he not being deployed and moreover, will he be a threat, though he is neither player nor played?

  Questions in the night. We shall leave her with them for her bedside company.

  Chapter 12

  Let us consider a card.

  Its frontage shows the Seven of Staves, but who is he?

  A man who has struggled to the top, perhaps, and now fights to hold his position? A middling functionary, not a king, but neither is he a pawn, but rather he is Alvise Muna, who at fifty-seven years of age has lived longer than most who serve within the Doge’s court and yet, for all that he has wandered these halls for decades and heard the secret mutterings at midnight, there is a sense about him that he will rise no higher, but remain for ever as he is: a councillor, reliable, solid, unremarkable, a little prone to bribery but not at unreasonable cost which, in Venice, is as high an honour as may be given to a man, and going nowhere more than where he stands now.

  She meets him in the Piazza San Marco. He walks alone, a roll of documents under one arm, a velvet cap pulled down upon his grey, bent head, a great mole upon his chin, utterly devoid of colour, paler almost than the skin from which it grows, and when she steps before him, he moves to pass without looking, for there is nothing in these streets save business to be administered, and he would rather administer it from his office than in the presence of the people themselves.

  —Signor Muna, she says, and he half turns at his name
, slowing his pace.—I hold your card.

  Now he stops, now he looks all around, now he grabs her by the arm and whispers,—In some other place.

  They enter the basilica separately, and for a while he prays and so does she, though he is on bended knee at the front of the aisle while she sits behind, beneath gold and the eyes of Christ. Quiet is amplified in this place more than noise, for every whisper echoes and every hush that falls is deepened, deepened by the depth it has to plummet. When he has finished at his devotions, they meet beneath the gaze of St. John, a lamb at his feet, a book in his hand, his eyes sorrowful at the deeds that men will bring.

  —I owe some favours, he whispers.—I acquired some debts. A woman dressed all in white offered me a chance. She said you would one day come.

  —What kind of debts?

  —That’s my business. They are forgiven when the game is done.

  —You are positioned in the palace?

  —If you call it that. I do all the work that everyone else is too busy arguing about. I worry about the waterways, about silt and mud. I consider the price of crab, the quality of fish, the depth of new wells dug in old squares, the paving materials and safety of rooftops. Other men should do this but they have their eyes on a bigger prize.

  —Your work sounds difficult.

  —I will never be more than a slave to other men’s ambitions.

  —I believe now the favours you owe to others have devolved to me. That is the meaning of this card, is it not?

  —It is, though I am no pawn to be moved across a board. My debts are my debts, but when they are paid I will risk my neck no more in any man’s business.

  —I do not ask you to take risks.

  —Then what do you want?

  —A sounding of the Senate chambers. In less than a month a Tribune will be chosen to replace the deceased Barbaro. For now, I wish to know the disposition of the electors, what influences them and what they desire. These things will not be won on principal but on the greatest gain for the largest sum of people. It is only information I need now, which a man of your qualities will have well disposed. Information is not a great burden to acquire.