Pip Vaughan-Hughes - The Vault of bones

'No one has been here’ I said. No one had come to this house since Gilles had left, two or more months ago. That meant that Querini had not yet thought to search the place – or perhaps, hope against hope, he had not even arrived in the city, and we had overtaken him somewhere upon the ocean. But that thought, tempting though it was, could not be clung to.

We might stay here, but it is not safe’ I whispered, so that the dust could not collect upon the words. 'Querini will come here sooner or later. It is less safe than if he had already ransacked it. Where shall we go, then?'

She said nothing. I turned to find her gazing into an enormous mirror. I had seen such things before, but they had been little discs of burnished silver that gave one a reflection little better than could be had from a puddle of water. This one was almost as big as my head, and I could see that it was curved like the face of a soap-bubble. Curious, I went to her side. In the mirror the room was duplicated as if through a window. Another Letice stood there, fey and dishevelled, looking out at me with mocking eyes. And next to her another man stood uncertainly. He was sunburnt and his thick brown hair was in need of trimming, and had not seen a comb for many a windblown day. There was a rutted track of newly healed scars across his face, pink and livid, and his clothes were rough and salt-stained. His nose was somewhat askew, and his eyes were at once suspicious and resigned. The only thing bright and lively about him was the sheathed knife at his belt with its hilt of green stone set with rubies. I swore under my breath and stepped back hurriedly. Letice's eyes watched me from the mirror. Then she shook her head, and for a moment the glass was a blur of whirling golden threads. Then it was empty save for the empty room.

We can go somewhere very near’ she said at last, after a long silence.

I took the trouble of locking the doors behind us, scraping away with my crude tools while Letice kept watch. We had left through the street door, and had found ourselves in a little square. There were unfinished brick walls on three sides, their windows boarded up with weathered planks. The Ca Kanzir formed the fourth side. A low marble well-head stood in the middle, its carvings softened by years of rain. Ahead of us a low tunnel led under the sagging, abandoned building. The Calle Morto, the Captain had called it: the Alley of the Dead. Inside the tunnel, the stench of cat was almost solid in the air. White stalactites dripped like livid toadstools from the roof. It was narrow enough that I could easily touch both sides as I walked, and shadows lurked here as thick as soot, or ashes. Letice seemed as oppressed by the tunnel as I was, and hurried along, pausing only when she reached the end and looked out into a wider alley.

‘I thought so!' she hissed triumphantly. 'The Calle dei Morti. We are only just around the corner’ 'From what?' I whispered back.

You will see,' she crowed, stepping out into the street. There were a few people about, but no one gave us a second look, and I followed Letice, who turned left and began to bustle along. We passed over a little bridge and into the square beyond.

It was a small square and one side of it was a church. But the other three sides were all high walls of brick with many pointed windows. And in those windows, in each one, stood a woman, sometimes two or more; women with painted faces, with curled hair of every unnatural hue and -I stopped dead in my tracks as I took this in – all of them with clothing pulled up or down, or no clothing at all, shaking their breasts, offering them, caressing their bellies, even flicking aside their tunics to give a glimpse of bush. And down below, men, scores of them, some furtive, some strutting with stirred-up lust. Every one of them had his head thrown back and his mouth hanging slack, gawping up at the tarts…

'Oi, fishface,' Letice said loudly in my ear. You can do that later’ She grabbed my hand and led me through the throng, my nose wrinkling at the acrid, hog-house scent of rutting men, trying not to look up at the festoons of juddering pink flesh above me. And then I saw: Letice was leading me into one of the houses. I tried to protest, but too late, for she had rapped out some signal upon the door, and in another instant we were inside, and a grave man with a monkish face and a humped back was closing the door behind us.

This was not my first time in a brothel, I must confess, but if I had intended to make some pretence of virtue I need not have bothered, for no one was paying the slightest attention to me. Instead, a gang of women had leaped up, leaving assorted men behind them in various stages of arousal and indignation, and had surrounded Letice like bees about their queen. They poked and stroked her, laughing, scolding and gabbing, and her voice rose above them in happy protest, until an older woman, her grey hair gathered under a sort of starched wimple and dressed in a sombre robe of shimmering, lead-hued silk, emerged from the shadows and began to belabour the tarts none too gently with a silver-tipped staff. They squealed and did not seem to mind, but when the blows continued to fall they trotted back, chattering and swearing cheerfully at each other, to their impatient customers.

'Magpie!' said the madam, for so she must be. She did not smile, but held her arms out stiffly from her sides. Letice embraced her around the neck and hung there, as if embracing a crucifix. The woman patted her upon the head and pushed her away gently with the head of her staff.

'My little London Magpie’ said the woman. 'Or rather, Signorina Querini, eh? What are you doing here, Letice?' There was affection in her voice, but a palpable edge as well. Letice bowed her head.

'Messer Nicholas has let me go’ she said. 'He gave me away to Dardi Boldu.' Something appeared for a moment in the madam's face, but vanished as quickly as it had come. It was a lean visage, planed and chiselled and sanded, lips thinned by time but still full, eyelids thin and sagging but beneath them, eyes of startling green. She had probably never been beautiful, but no doubt she had always terrified and bewitched.

'Oh, dear’ she said, emotionlessly. 'But you have found yourself a new benefactor, I see. My, he looks important. Welcome to II Bisato Beccato, Signor’ She gave me a flat, scouring look. I thought of bowing, and thought again. 'No, Mother, this is Petroc. He is a friend. We are..’

'Not fucking’ finished the woman bluntly. That is plain. Why are you here, little one?'

We need a… a bed’ said Letice. It was the first time I had seen her ruffled. 'Not for that! I mean, we need a place to stay, not for long, just a few days’ 'And why should I let you stay here, in trouble as you plainly are?' said the woman. Nothing showed in her face. Letice nodded to me, and I pulled out my purse.

We will pay what we would at the finest hostelry in Venice’ I said, fumbling out a gold piece. At the sight of the coin one of the woman's eyebrows lifted fractionally. She tapped Letice upon a breast with her cane and treated us both to a frosty smile.

Well, my dears, sentiment is my weakness’ she said, her voice showing not a glimmer of any weakness whatsoever. ‘You may stay five days. Any longer and I shall put you to work – both of you’ I felt the tip of the cane brush my crotch and cleared my throat noisily. ‘You may have your old quarters, Magpie. The girl who was using them died last week.'

'Thank you, Mother Zaneta’ said Letice fervently, dropping a deep curtsey. Now I did bow, but Mother Zanetas cane caught me under the chin. 'Do not put that purse away, young man’ she said. 'The terms of my house are very explicit. Payment in advance, for any and.. ‘ the cane found the coin and there was a chink of silver upon gold,'… all services’