Mutiny Read online

  Once, sighted far off and in with the coast, they saw a galley, fully as long as Bacchante, sails struck and pulling directly into the wind. The dip and rise of the oars in the sunlight was steady and regular, a never-ending rhythm that went on into the distance.

  They were getting close to Venice at the head of the gulf, and that evening Kydd caught Renzi gazing ahead with an intense expression. “Y’r Venice is accounted a splendid place, I’ve heard,” Kydd ventured.

  Renzi appeared not to have heard, but then said distantly, “It is, my friend.”

  “A shame we can’t step ashore. I’d enjoy t’ see the sights.”

  Renzi responded immediately: “In Venice you’d see spectacle and beauty enough for a lifetime.” He turned on Kydd with passionate intensity. “There you’ll find the most glorious and serene expressions of the human spirit—and in the same place, soul’s temptation incarnate, licentiousness as a science, a pit of profligacy ! E sempa scostumata, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

  Kydd tried to resist the smile pulling at his mouth; at last, this was the Renzi he remembered, not the cheerless introspective he had seemed to become of late.

  Renzi noticed and, mistaking its origin, frowned in disapproval. “This is also, I might point out, the Venice of the Doge and his cruel prisons, where torture and death are acts of state and the Council of Ten rules by fear.

  “But it is also the Venice of carnival,” he continued, in a softer voice. “The masks will be abroad at this very time, I think you’ll find, and in the evening—”

  “You’ve been t’ Venice before.”

  Renzi looked away “Yes.” There was a pause before he went on: “In the last years of the peace. You will know it is the custom for the sons of the quality to perform a Grand Tour. My companion and I knew no limits in the quest for education, you may believe.”

  Kydd waited for Renzi to continue, and saw that it was causing him some difficulty. “I was a different being then, one whose appreciation of life as the aggregate of pain and heart’s desire was a little wanting in the article of penetration to the particulars.”

  Wondering what lay behind the careful cloud of words, Kydd decided not to pursue it. He had not seen Renzi so animated for a long time, but his features were a curious mixture of longing and sadness. Whatever blue devils were haunting him, the proximity of the fabled Venice had awakened life in him once more.

  This far north the winds of spring were chill and strong; the frigate closed the Italian coast that night, and launched her cutter. It was too dark to make out much of the lonely figure of the Venetian agent helped down into the boat, but Kydd felt for him, going out alone into the unknown night.

  Kydd knew the general area from the charts—a long thin spit of land enclosing a vast lagoon inside it, with the island of Venice in the middle. The agent had insisted they come no closer than the southern corner of the lagoon, the fishing-port of Chioggia, which now lay somewhere out in the darkness.

  The cutter’s sails went up and were sheeted home smartly, the boat quickly disappearing into the murk. After some hours it returned on time, magically reappearing under their lee having sighted the special red-white-red lanthorns set as a signal, and without the agent. Bacchante lost no time in making for the safety of the open sea, to spend the daylight hours in standing off and on.

  It was disappointing—the whole mystery of Venice just out of sight, and one they would not see—for in the absence of any English opposition the French were rampaging down Italy in an unstoppable wave and could be anywhere. It was not a place to linger more than was necessary.

  They returned that night; the agent would have news or, better, the important person himself, presuming all was well ashore. They could soon be in a position to crowd on all sail, turn about and fly back to Gibraltar.

  Kydd didn’t know whether to be pleased at an early return to Emily or dismayed at the prospects of reverting to his fractious, low-spirited ship. Emily’s image seemed oddly unreal in his mind’s eye, and he was uneasily aware that the hot sap that had risen before was gone.

  He sought out his friend, who as usual was to be found on the foredeck with his clay pipe, taking advantage of the frigate’s easy motion and looking pensively out to seaward.

  “You think I’m pixie led, quean-struck on her?” Kydd blurted, after a while.

  Renzi turned to him, amused. “Not as one might say.” Did his friend think that he was the first to be infatuated with an older woman? His own past was not one he could hold as an exemplar. In this very place he and his fellow young gentlemen on the Grand Tour had been shamelessly dissolute, uncaring and unfeeling as any young and careless sprig of nobility. But Kydd’s honesty and sincerity in his voyage of self-discovery touched something in Renzi. “Cupid casts his spells unevenly, capriciously, we cannot command his favors. If she has not been blessed in full measure with the same warmth of feeling as yourself, then …”

  “She has!”

  “Oh? You said before that she hadn’t declared her feelings for you, had not thrown herself at your feet.” Kydd remained silent, frowning. “When you volunteered for this mission, there was no urgent message, no beseeching to keep from danger.” He paused significantly. “In fine, your ardor exceeds hers.”

  Kydd reddened but said stubbornly, “She’ll be waitin’ for me, see if she don’t.”

  “It might be the more rational course to allow her time to reflect. Cool your fervency, steady your pace—haul away, keep an offing, so to speak.”

  “Aye, I c’n see this, but y’ see, my course is set. Nicholas, before we sailed I sent her a letter, a warm letter in which—in which I made m’ feelings known.”

  “Good God!”

  “I wanted t’ set her right about things. Make sure she knows—makes no mistake about m’ passion.”

  “May I know, er, what you said in this letter?”

  It took some embarrassing prodding but the full story was not long in coming. In Kydd’s own strong round hand it had opened with flowery darlings, then plunged into hot protestations of undying love, the usual heights and depths, and—was such innocence believable?—a final urging to find it in her heart to break with an unhappy, sterile marriage and flee with him to Paradise.

  Renzi shook his head wordlessly. Then he said, “If you sent the letter in the usual way, the husband might have intercepted it.”

  “I know,” Kydd said impatiently. “I took steps t’ have it delivered personally.”

  “My dear fellow—dear brother.” Renzi took a deep breath. “Might I point out to you what you have just done? If, as I suspect, your lady is as yet—unformed in her affections, then your letter most surely will cause her great agitation of the spirit, will frighten her like a deer from the unknown.”

  Kydd did not argue, but stared at him obstinately.

  “And the rest is worse. It is a cardinal rule in any affair of the heart, which is, shall we say, on an irregular basis, that nothing is placed in writing, which could, er, be misconstrued by a third party.” Renzi held Kydd’s reluctant attention. “For the passing on of your letter you will have secured the services of someone close to her, I assume her maid. The letter will most certainly be delivered—but she is not expecting it and it will be placed on a silver salver, as is our way in polite society, together with others, but you are not to know this. Her husband may be in residence, he will be curious at the unknown writing or the perturbation of spirits in his wife as she receives it. In short, my friend, you most certainly will be discovered.

  “And if I recollect, it is mentioned that her husband is, in a substantial way, a member of the military.”

  Kydd paled. “Er, the acting town major, right enough. Do you—would he, d’ye think, want a duel or somethin’?”

  Renzi held his stern expression, delaying his response as long as he could in the face of Kydd’s anxious gaze. “Well, I am obliged to point out that as you are not accounted a gentleman, he cannot obtain a satisfaction and would not demean
his standing in society by a meeting.” He sighed and continued gently, “Therefore a horse-whipping is more to be expected, I believe.”

  There was a shocked silence. Then Kydd drew himself up. “Thank ye, Nicholas, that was very kind in you t’ make it all so clear,” he said quietly, and made his way below.

  That night, the agent was picked up, unaccompanied, at the appointed rendezvous. His news was not good; given in breathless haste as soon as he had made the dimly lit deck, it was overheard by the entire quarterdeck watch and, in the way of things, quickly relayed around the ship.

  The grandee, a diplomat, Sir Alastair Leith, had planned to cross the Alps to safety in the independent republic of Venice, but things had gone from bad to much worse. Daring a lightning advance from France across the north of Italy to the other side, the French had taken city after city, putting the Austrians and Sardinians to humiliating retreat. Beautiful, ancient Italian cities, such as Verona, Mantua, Rivoli, were already in the hands of the vigorous and precocious new general, Napoleon Buonaparte, who was now flooding the rich plains of the Po Valley with French soldiers. Soon the Venetian Republic and her territories would be isolated, quite cut off, and the history of this gifted land would be changed for all time.

  “You saw the consul, did you not, Mr. Amati?” the captain asked coldly. The ambassador would have long since departed, and English interests would be served by a consul, a local, probably a merchant.

  The single lanthorn illuminated only one side of the agent’s face and he shifted defensively. “Mi scusi—the city is violent, excited, he is deeficult to fin’, Capitano.”

  “So you were unable to contact him.”

  “I did no’ say that,” the Italian said, affronted. He was short, dark and intense, and his eyes glittered in the lanthorn light. “I send a message. He tell me Signor Lith i’ not in Venezia—anywhere.”

  “Thank you.”

  There was now the fearful decision as to whether and for how long they should wait for him to appear or if they should make the reasonable assumption that he had been overtaken by the French. A frigate dallying off the port would inevitably attract notice, no matter which colors she flew, and in the heightened tensions of war she would soon be the focus of attention from every warring power. Then again, if they sailed away, leaving stranded the delayed object of their mission …

  The captain paced forward rigidly along the whole length of the deck to the fo’c’sle. Men stood aside, touching their hats but unnoticed. He returned, and came to a halt near the wheel, then turned to the waiting officers. “I cannot wait here, yet we cannot abandon Sir Alastair.

  “Lieutenant Griffith, I’d be obliged if you would go to Venice and there await his arrival. When he appears, it is your duty to hire or seize a vessel, and make rendezvous with me at sea. This will enable me to keep the ship well away from the coast. I propose to wait for ten days only.”

  Griffith hesitated, but only for a moment. “Aye-aye, sir.”

  “The master will furnish you with a list of our noon positions for the next fourteen days. I do not have to impress upon you the importance of their secrecy.”

  “No, sir.”

  “You will be provided with a quantity of money for your subsistence—which you will account for on your return, together with a sum for contingent necessaries.” He pondered, then said, “You may find Mr. Renzi useful, I suspect. And a couple of steady hands—it would be well to have a care when ashore, I believe. Who will you have?”

  “Kydd, sir,” Griffith said instantly. Then, after a moment’s reflection, “And Larsson.” The big Swedish quartermaster was a good choice.

  “We must rely on Mr. Amati to find discreet quarters for you—the place will no doubt be alive with spies of every description, and you must be extremely circumspect.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then we shall proceed to details.”

  At Amati’s suggestion, a trabaccolo, a fat lug-rigged merchant craft, one of many scuttling nervously past in the dark, was brought to with a shot before her bows. Discussions under the guns of the frigate were brief, but English silver was considered a fair compensation for the delay, with the promise of more on safe arrival in Venice.

  Bemused and interested by turns, Kydd clambered over the gunwale of the little coaster after Lieutenant Griffith. The crew lounged about the lively deck under an evil-smelling oil lamp, watching stonily, the stout captain fussing them all aboard with a constant jabber of Italian and waving hands. Seabags clumped to the deck, and they were on their own.

  Amati was clearly tense, and answered the skipper in short, clipped phrases. “He say he wan’ you to unnerstan’ it ays forbidden to enter Venezia in th’ night. We wait for day.”

  Griffith grunted. “Very well. Get sleep while you can, you men.” The three seamen found a place under a tarpaulin forward, over the cargo in the open hold. This was a tightly packed mass of wicker baskets containing lemons, their fragrance eddying around them as they bobbed to the night current.

  They awoke to a misty dawn, off a long, low-lying coast stretching endlessly in each direction. They were not alone: nearly two dozen other coastal traders were at anchor or moving lazily across the calm sea, morning sounds carrying clearly across the water.

  Kydd rolled over. He saw Griffith waiting for Amati to finish a voluble exchange with the skipper, but Renzi lay still staring upward.

  “So we’re t’ see this Venice, an’ today,” Kydd said, with relish.

  Renzi’s dismissive grunt brought a jet of annoyance. His friend had become vexing in his moods again, dampening the occasion and making Kydd feel he had in some way intruded on private thoughts. “M’ chance t’ see if it is as prime as ye say,” he challenged. There was no intelligible response.

  Griffith clambered over to them, steadying himself by the shrouds. “The captain wishes you to be—shall we say?—less conspicuous. Mr. Amati says that there’s every description of seaman in Venice—Dalmatian, Albanian, Mussulmen, Austrians—and doubts we’ll be noticed, but begs we can wear some token of this part of the world.”

  He looked doubtfully at Kydd’s pea coat and Larsson’s short blue naval jacket. The crew members wore the bonnet rouge, the distinctive floppy red headgear, and a swaggering sash. The Englishmen paid well over the odds for such common articles, which brought the first expressions of amusement from the crew.

  The first diffuse tints of rose and orange tinged the mists when a gun thudded next to a small tower. As one, bows swung around and there was a general convergence on a gap in the coastline at the tower, a cloud of small ships slipping through the narrow opening, the trabaccolo captain at his tiller a study in concentration as he jockeyed his craft through.

  It was only a slender spit of land, but inside was the Venetian lagoon, and Venice. The spreading morning vision took Kydd’s breath away: an island set alone in a glassy calm, some five miles off, fairy tale in the roseate pale of morning, alluring in its medieval mystery. He stared at the sight, captivated by the tremulous beauty of distant bell towers, minarets and old stone buildings.

  The lagoon was studded with poles marking deeper channels and Kydd tore away his attention to admire the deft seamanship that had the deep-laden trader nimbly threading its way through. The trabaccolo was rigged with a loose lugsail at the fore and a standing lug at the mainmast, an odd arrangement that had the lower end of the lug swung around the after side of one mast when tacking about, but left the other on the same side.

  As they approached, the island city took on form and substance. A large number of craft were sleepily approaching or leaving, the majority issuing forth from a waterway in the center of the island. They tacked about and bore down on it and it soon became apparent that a minor island was detached from the main; they headed toward the channel between, toward a splendor of buildings that were as handsome as they were distinctive.

  Kydd stared in wonder. Here was a civilization that was confident and disdainful to dare so much magnificence.
He stole a look at the others. The crewmen seemed oblivious to it, faking down ropes and releasing hatch covers; Larsson gazed stolidly, while Renzi and Griffith both stared ahead, absorbed in the approaching prospect. Amati fidgeted next to the captain, visibly ill at ease.

  They shaped course to parallel the shore, passing a splendid vision of a palace, colonnades, the brick-red of an impossibly lofty square bell tower. “Piazza San Marco,” Renzi said, noticing Kydd’s fascination. “You will find the Doge at home in that palace. He is the chief eminence of Venice. You will mark those two pillars—it is there that executions of state are performed, and to the right, the Bridge of Sighs and the Doge’s dread prison.” He spoke offhandedly, and Kydd felt rising irritation until he realized this was a defense: his cultured friend was as affected as he.

  Griffith broke off his discussion with Amati and came across. “You see there,” he said, pointing at a golden ball displayed prominently at the tip of the approaching promontory, “the Saluday, where we find the customs house of Venice. We shall be boarded, but Mr. Amati says there’ll be no difficulties. They’re much more concerned to levy their taxes, and foreign seamen are not of interest to them.”

  He gave a small smile. “I will be a factor from Dalmatia, Mr. Renzi will be my clerk.” Griffith wore the plain black last seen on Bacchante’s surgeon. “We may disembark and take passage to our lodgings without interference.”

  True to anticipation, the revenue officials ignored them in favor of a lively interchange with the captain, leaving them to hail and board one of the flat workboats sculling about.